Weakness
by That One Random Kid
Summary: Ria felt torn. Torn between someone from her own planet, and the Irken who looked down upon them from atop his leathal metal PAK legs. Better discription inside! Rated for violence, possible language, and romance later on. Please R&R! Yes dumb title. :P
1. Chapter 1

**READ THIS PLEASE!**

**Okayyy peoples! If u are reading this… then thank u soo much!**

**GIR: HEY LOOK! THERES A PICTURE OF MEE ON THERE!**

**Yes, GIR is my computer wallpaper. He also plays frequent visits to my brain. But I'm not crazy, I swear. I haven't burned down a building since… well actually we won't get into that right now! Hehe *innocent face*!**

**Now about this story. Well. For one thing, I'm hoping to make this one looong story. Maybe thirty-forty chapters? If I reach my goal that is.**

**Second. In this story, it's been a six years since Zim came to Earth. The characters are sixteen (except for Gaz, she's fourteen).**

**I know there's going to be romance in here but I'm not sure when. It won't be right away, but I'm adding some hints in the beginning. I'm not exactly sure what pairings I will have because I'm not sure what characters are going 2 be in the story, but I feel a love triangle coming on (not ZADR, its impossible becuz of something that happens). Here's what I have decided about the characters so far.**

**Zim: a very important character in the story! Duhh! **

**Dib: ditto**

**GIR: Of course GIR is in it! **

**Gaz: at the beginning of the story she's missing -read the story to find out what that's all about- but anyway I think she'll end up being alive unless I'm feeling evil and decide that someone was tough enough to kill her.**

**Tak: she'll be in it, but not right away.**

**Prof. Membrane: …*shrugs***

**If a character is not mentioned, they are most likely not going to appear in this story. If you want someone to be in the story that isn't just write it in a review or message me or something and I might add them in a plot twist (I LOVE plot twists).**

**And then I have my OC, Ria! Her family and friends are in this a little bit, but I didn't want to put too much OCness in this so they aren't in it all that much. Wow, I have just wasted a lot of time and space on this. I must really have no life, huh? Hahaha kidding, kidding, kidding! I hope u like this and please review!**

**P.S. I DON'T OWN INVADER ZIM!**

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_Ria_

Two months. That's all she had. All she had to try to convince the Irkens to spare her planet. They'd swept through the entire universe, conquering planets as they went, until they finally had reached Earth. For the first time in her life, Ria felt quite helpless, all alone against an entire empire of aliens. There weren't many things that could make Ria feel helpless, because she always found some way to fix things. This time, though, she had no idea what she was supposed to do.

There was a lot to do aboard the Massive, where she was currently being kept, but Ria was too dazed and confused to do any of it. She wasn't sure why the stupid Irken leaders had decided to spare her. It probably had something to do with her strange mind reading gifts, or maybe because she had ability to never forget anything. Ria had never much liked having those "gifts", because they made her different. She didn't like to be different, even though she was quite abnormal.

The way mind reading worked was not as simple as it may seem. You may think that you can just look at a person and hear what they're thinking, but it doesn't work that way. First of all, you only get an _idea_ of what the person is thinking, not really a specific thought directly from their mind.

The other thing is, some people are much easier to read than others. It seemed that the more complicated someone's thoughts were, the harder they were to read. The stupid Tallests for example, Ria could read like a book. But that boy with the big head and scythe hair… Dib, he was different. His mind was hard to penetrate, his thoughts difficult to find. Ria did get glimpses of what was in his mind, sometimes even memories of his. Ria had known Dib before all this, but not well.

She was into paranormal things a little, but she didn't like to talk about them much. The other kids thought she was weird when she did. Except for Dib, that is, but the other kids thought he was weird too. And he was, in a way. In other ways though, he was smart. Ria had never been in his class or homeroom at Skool, even though they'd gone to the same elementary, middle, and high skools, so she didn't get to talk to him much. She remembered he used to yell about some alien kid a lot though. Ria chuckled.

The other kids had thought that there were no such things as aliens, and look at the Earth now. Many places were in ruin, others were waiting in fear to be destroyed. Such a shame. What would Niri say if she were here now? She would probably say something that would make Ria laugh and smile, and then giggle that contagious giggle. Ria's eyes welled up with tears at the thought of her old best friend. She would never giggle that giggle again; never tease Ria for thinking her brother was cute, never pretend to be interested when Ria talked about ghosts or bigfoot. Niri was gone now.

Just then, there was a knock on the door of Ria's small room. She walked over and looked at the screen from her security camera. There was Dib now. She sighed. "Come in…" she said, even though she would have rather been alone at the moment. She would rather be alone to wallow in her memories… the good ones at least. With so many memories, there were a lot of bad ones too.

Especially with all that she'd been through. All those horrible images… ones that a normal brain would have been able to block out, stayed imprinted in her brain forever. She shivered. Then again, there were the good memories too. In the good ones, she could see her parents again, and Niri. Her mom and Niri were gone forever, and by now her dad could be too. Ria wished she knew. Then there was a tap on her shoulder, jolting Ria out of her daydream and scaring her to death. She screamed and whirled around, grabbing her "attacker" by the collar of his black jacket. When she saw it was Dib, she slowly let him down.

"Sorry…" she said. After what had happened back on Earth, defensive qualities had sort of engrained themselves into Ria's brain. Dib shrugged. "You get used to it when you grow up with…" his voice trailed away. He was talking about Gaz. He didn't talk about her much anymore since he had left Earth without her. It wasn't his fault though. It was Ria's. Just like it was her fault that Dib's left arm and leg were now robot parts.

She tried to deny that it was her fault, she didn't like to be the one to blame for things like this, but she couldn't. She should have easily been able to choose between her own planet and an Irken, but she had frozen up as the two enemies had started to fight each other. She never suspected that things would go that far.

Dib shook his head. "Never mind. I came in here to remind you that the Tallest wanted to talk to you later. Gosh," he said.

"Gosh what?"

"It's so weird… all my life I wanted to just _show someone _an alien ship… now I live on one."

Ria laughed. "It's not really just a ship; I'd say it was more of a mother ship really."

"What do you know about a mother ship?" Dib cried, having one of his moments. Ria shook her head. He'd snap out of it in a minute. After all the things that had happened to Dib, he'd been having sudden outbursts. Ria hoped he'd be over them soon. "You've been contacting it, haven't you? Huh? Huh? Huh…" Dib trailed away. "Did I just do it again?"

"Do what?" Ria said, trying to act like she hadn't noticed.

"The-The thing. You know, the thing that you say I do but I don't think I do but you say I do the thing-" Dib stopped to catch his breath, and a mischievous grin pulled at the edges of Ria's lips.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" she said. Ria tried not to make fun of Dib for his outbursts because of all he'd been through, but it was hard when he constantly asked if he had done it again. Dib scowled. "Whatever. I'll… see you at dinner." Then he headed for the door. He gave one final glance over his shoulder as he walked away, and then the door closed behind him.

Ria sighed and looked out her window at the rotating planet that she used to live on. She brushed her jet-black hair away from her eyes. It was a beautiful planet. It made her mind wander back to her memories again… memories of her friends, her family, and the little Irken and his defective robot that she'd met there. As she pondered through memories, Ria unconsciously wondered where Zim was now. She hadn't seen him since… the _incident_.

This thought made Ria feel a jump coming on. She hated the jumps. She went back to one of her memories, and couldn't escape. It was sort of like a dream, but much more vivid and realistic. How long would she be stuck there this time? And more importantly, where would she go? If she went back to one of the bad ones, she didn't know if she could take it. She might finally go off the deep end, if she hadn't already, that is. When the window in front of her started to fade, she could hear the sounds of her high skool class talking before class began. Oh no, she wasn't going back to the_ day_ was she? Too late to think about it now…

Ria looked over to Niri, who was right beside her, and rolled her eyes. Mrs. DioGennero was passing out test papers. Another pointless test. Why didn't teachers understand the way student's brains worked? They studied for a test, took the test, and forgot what they'd learned when they started studying for the next one. Therefore, tests were completely pointless.

"I _hate_ history!" Niri groaned. Ria chuckled.

"You hate every subject."

Niri shrugged. "True," she replied with a little eye roll. "But I hate history most. Especially tests."

"The feeling's mutual."

Mrs. DioGennero scowled and shushed the two girls as she slammed their test papers onto their desks. "No talking," she muttered. Ria rolled her eyes and picked up her pencil, tapping it on her desk as she read the first question.

The first answer came to her right away, and she scribbled it down. The next one wasn't too hard either. This wasn't so bad. Ok, third question. What is the- Ria's train of thought was cut off by a loud rumbling sound. She looked up, trying to see if anyone else had heard it. Most of the other students were also looking around for the source of the sound. Ria looked at Niri, who shrugged and started fiddling with her lucky silver bracelet. Ria tried to focus her brain on the test again, but something was giving her an eerie feeling. She shivered and looked up again.

The other students had returned to their paper. Ria took a quick peek inside some of their minds, but only feelings of boredom or concentration on the test flowed through her. "Is there a problem Ria?" Mrs. DioGennero asked.

"No ma'm." Ria glanced back at her paper, but she still couldn't concentrate. Then there was another rumble, louder this time, and Ria swore she heard screaming from outside. Her heart started to race, and she looked around nervously. The rest of the class either looked annoyed by the sound or scared like Ria. Mrs. DioGennero scowled at them again. "If there are anymore distractions, I will-" That's when Ria saw it.

A big, no scratch that _giant_, no scratch that _massive_ spaceship was looming out in the sky above, coming slowly closer to the ground. It cast a dark and menacing shadow over the parking lot of the school, and the tiny looking people by their cars were screaming and pointing at the sky in shock. Ria froze up, dropping her pencil to the floor. "Ria!" Mrs. DioGennero said, scowling. Ria tried to say something, but her throat had gone dry. "Um…" she managed to spit out. The students and even Mrs. DioGennero followed Ria's gaze out the window.

There were many different reactions from the class, the most common ones being freezing up or screaming. Many students seemed to be in denial that the ship was really even _there_, rubbing their eyes and telling themselves it was a dream. Ria had already considered that option, but all the other events of the day had been far too detailed and realistic.

Peter decided to jump up on his desk and taunt the ship by waving and sticking out his tongue at it. That weird kid, Dib, was screaming about 'proof'. Ria looked at her friend next to her, who had frozen, pencil still in hand. Then the ground started to shake. Peter fell off his desk, and Mrs. DioGennero stumbled and caught her balance on the chalkboard.

A bright light flashed seeming to come from the ship, and Ria's mind completely shut down. She couldn't hear sound around her, even though she knew everyone was screaming. She couldn't put together a reasonable thought, but she was sure that she was about to die. At the last minute, she stood up and started running. She didn't know where she was running, but she had to run. Maybe it was just instinctual.

She made it to the classroom door, yanked it open, and threw herself into the hall. She landed on her knees and tried to pull herself up, but then she felt the white hot light on her back. It was over. It was all over. Just before she blacked out, Ria thought she saw Dib standing in the hall. She felt herself be thrown forward and thought; _too bad it_ _had to end this way._

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**Huh. Well I didn't really like how this one came out that much, even tho I did revise it a time or two… oh wellsies. And remember, every reviewer gets a virtual hug from GIR. Or maybe even a real one, if he likes u enough . Did it seem short to you? Well if it did I promise the next one is longer! Did Dibbers seem OOC? I think he did, but I'm already wayyy to self conscious about my writing so hopefully he didn't seem like that to u. review!**


	2. Chapter 2: Destruction

**ok, chappy number two. Wait a second, I think I have some other business to take care of first…**

**RoboticMasterMind, thank you for being my first reviewer! GIR gives you an extra lo-o-ng hug for that!  
GIR: YAY! *hugs computer***

**Me: hehe, alright gir, you can let go.**

**GIR: *continues hugging***

**Me: ok… *tries to pull GIR away* well my next reviewer was *pulls* CullenGirl14… and GIR, you are done hugging RoboticMasterMind now, you get to hug someone else!**

**GIR: *lets go***

**Me: *goes flying across the room***

**GIR: OK!**

**Me: *stumbles out of closet* Do your thing GIR…**

**GIR: *hugs computer***

**Me: Ok, good job GIR.**

**GIR: *lets go***

**Me: now we have Tigerblossom… you know what to do GIR!**

**GIR: YEP! *hugs computer***

**Me: and that's all the time for hugs we have today! **

**now enjoy. And by the way, Ria's not **_**that**_** short, Zim just grew. Ok? And just so no one gets confused, Ria is still trapped in her memories, this is not happening in the present.**

**I would also like to dedicate this chapter to whoever invented the iPod. You see, my brain is very strange, and cannot properly write stories unless there is music playing. So thank you. Thank you oh great and mighty inventor of the iPod.**

**Oh, and I don't own Invader Zim! Or apple or any mp3 companies, if that even matters. Which I don't think it does. But oh well.**

_Ria_

Everything hurt. Her head, her back, her arms, her legs. Everything. There was something underneath Ria that felt like rocks. Where was she? Ria wanted to know, but didn't feel like she even had the strength to open her eyes. She had to though. She had to figure out what had happened. Ria pulled her heavy eyelids open and looked around. She was lying in the middle of a huge pile of rubble and destruction. She could smell smoke lingering in the air, and saw the sun starting to set in the distance. Why was everything like this, when the last thing Ria could remember was an ordinary day at Skool? Or at least, as close to ordinary as a day in this stink-hole of a town could get.

There didn't seem to be any other people around to explain things, so Ria would have to figure things out on her own. She struggled to sit up on her elbows so she could get a better look around. This certain pile of ruins vaguely reminded Ria of something… her high skool. It may have been the locker door beside her leg, or the desk fragments behind her, but she suddenly realized… this _was_ her high skool. Then it clicked.

The big spaceship, the explosion, running out into the hall. It was all so crazy sounding that Ria tried to convince herself that it was a dream. And what about Niri? Niri. Oh no. She was in the skool too! Ria jumped to her feet, ignoring the wave of weakness that came over her, and franticly looked this way and that, hoping to catch sight of her best friend.

Ria didn't see any signs of Niri, but she did see someone lying on the ground a few yards away. Ria walked up closer to them, trying to figure out who it was. The first thing that Ria thought of was that she'd found someone's body, but as she came closer she saw that whoever she was looking at was not human at all. Ria froze in her tracks when she noticed the black pair of antennae on top of his head. Her heart started to race, and it felt like her stomach did a little flip. It was one of them. One of the aliens who had just destroyed her skool.

Ria slowly backed away from the body, not bothering to check if it was alive. How was she supposed to tell anyway? She turned away and shuddered, pacing around the ruins, looking through the rubble for any sign of life. Ria was getting a creepy feeling from all of this, but she tried to ignore it. Still, she couldn't quite shake this sixth sense type of thing she was getting. Ria turned around at ever noise, warily scanning her surroundings.

Every now and then, she'd hear something that sounded like more explosions in the distance, but it couldn't be. The army would come, they'd send the navy, they'd send everyone! That spaceship would have been weakened by now. There was a small sound that seemed to come from behind Ria's back, and she was tempted to look behind her. She stopped herself though; Ria needed to get rid of this paranoia. Still, Ria couldn't help the shivers that she got, the feeling that someone was staring at her from behind.

She took another look around. There didn't seem to be anything, but Ria swore she could still hear odd sounds. Maybe even a voice. Not too close, but close enough that if the speaker was looking, they could see her. Ria turned around and looked again. Yes, there was definitely a voice, but Ria could not make out what it was saying. She started moving in the direction that she thought it was coming from. The voice grew louder. Ria paused, unsure if she should go further, but then continued on. As she slowly shuffled through the rock, probably making more noise than she suspected, the voice abruptly stopped.

Ria's breath froze in her chest as footsteps started coming in her direction, and she looked around wildly for somewhere to hide. There was a pile of rubble that was probably large enough for Ria to crouch behind, but it wouldn't be a very good hiding place. Still, the footsteps were coming closer and there didn't seem to be anywhere else to go. Ria jumped and crouched as low as she could behind the pile of twisted metal and cracked up cement.

As she silently tried not to inhale the dust she was sitting in, the footsteps got extremely close and stopped. Had they seen her? Ria craned her neck and hoped that whoever was out there would not notice the top of her head peek out from her hiding spot. When Ria saw who the footsteps belonged to, she nearly had a heart attack. It was the little green alien that she'd seen before. It wasn't dead.

Ria gasped without thinking, and the green boy's head snapped toward the sound. Ria pulled her head back behind the rubble, hoping she'd done it soon enough. That's when Ria heard the sound, sort of like an airplane, but smaller. It was coming closer. And there was a little, child-like voice paired with it. "We-e-e!" the childish voice screamed, giggling a little. Ria buried her head in her hands. She must be going crazy. Then the sound stopped, but the little voice did not quit giggling.

"GIR!"

The alien spoke for the first time. His voice gave Ria chills. "This is _serious!_ I need you to scan the area for life forms. Do you know how to do that?"

"U-h-h… nope!"

The alien sighed. Ria wished she could see what was happening out there, because so far, none of this was making sense. "Then just… look around! Tell me what you see!"

"Hmm… I see a rock, and a tree, and a _bird-eh! _And now I see-"

"No, GIR! I need you to look around for the _human worm-babies_ that were here before! If any of them survived…"

The alien's voice trailed away. There was definitely something familiar about his voice. It sounded like Zim, that green kid who had always seemed to Ria that he was not what he said he was. There were a few moments of silence, until a little robot with Cyan eyes peeked around the pile of metal that Ria hid behind. His eyes widened, (if that was possible; there were the size of saucers already) and he let out a scream that was loud enough to make Ria scream too. Then the robot smiled. "I li-i-ke you-u!" he said. Ria shushed him, but it was too late.

"GIR! What did you find?"

He was coming. Ria started to scoot away, hoping that she would somehow be able to escape, but of course she didn't. "Human!" the alien said. That was the first time Ria actually got a good look at him. His eyes were ruby-red and he had a pair of small black antennae on his head. He was pretty short, but not too much shorter than Ria. Then his clothes… his clothes were a dead giveaway. This _was_ Zim.

He appeared to have sustained some minor injuries from the explosion; one of his antennae was bent and he might have had a small limp in his left leg. Green blood was slowly dripping from a small cut on his face. That weird thing on his back seemed to have a very small dent in one side. Zim didn't appear to care about any of these things though; his vicious gaze was fixed on Ria. "Uh…" Ria stuttered. "H-H-Hi!" Zim curiously looked her over, ignoring her comment.

"Impossible…" he said. "An explosion like that would have been impossible for a pitiful _**human**_to survive!"

"S'PLODEY!" the robot said.

Ria glared at Zim. Did he just call her _pitiful_? "Excuse me?" Ria said. "Just because you're not human doesn't mean we're pitiful."

"What? I am human! I am NORMAL!" Ria shook her head.

"You have a pair of antennae on your head. And red eyes."

Zim froze up and seemed to realize something for the first time. "LIES!" he finally shouted.

"No-o-o…" Ria said. Just as the word escaped her lips, she got an idea. She had to squeeze all the information she could out of this mini-sized alien. "I mean, I know you're not human. You are just so… _superior _to me." Zim waved his hand dismissively.

"Yes, yes, so I am._"_

Ria raised her eyebrow. "What?"

"You heard me. The mighty ZIM does not repeat himself because of the human's incapable ears!"

This statement just confused Ria more. Zim chuckled. "Poor, confused little human. You are no use to me. ZIM shall let you live for now, My Tallest will destroy you soon enough."

"Your Tallest?"

"YES! The almighty Irken leaders that sent me to this _filthy_ planet years ago. I was planning to conquer it tonight, but it appears my Tallest were so eager for it to belong to Irk that they came themselves!"

Ok, Zim here appeared to be a complete moron. Ria stood up and backed away as Zim continued about how he and the rest of his empire were so mighty, often talking in third person. Hopefully she would be able to get out of here without Zim noticing. Ria was almost far enough away from Zim that she could consider it "safe" to run, when she tripped over something. She luckily didn't land on anything sharp enough to seriously injure her, but a broken up desk still wasn't the most comfortable thing to land on.

Ria sat up and looked around for what had tripped her. She never did figure out what it was, but she figured out something that she hoped it _wasn't. _There was an arm sticking out of the pile of destruction. A pale, delicate, young girl's arm. And it was wearing a familiar silver bracelet. Ria felt her heart stop, or at least, she thought she did. It couldn't be.

She slowly got up, feeling a num and hollow feeling in her chest as she prayed for it not to be true. Ria knocked some of the stones away, searching for the body that the arm belonged to. There it was. There was proof right there. The battered and bloody little body of a teenage girl, the girl that Ria had grown up with.

She'd gone to first grade with her, and could still feel that childish and eager feeling as she and Niri entered Mrs. Hart's classroom for the first time. She'd survived middle school with this girl. They'd survived becoming interested in the opposite sex together. They'd laughed together. Ria could still remember how Niri's eyes used to sparkle when she laughed. That sparkle was gone now; Niri's eyes were open, but blank of all emotion. Her body was cold. She looked so peaceful… almost like a mixture of happy and sad planted on her face.

Ria didn't want to look anymore. The longer she looked, the more this image would haunt her. She tried to tear her eyes away, but something froze them there. It couldn't be true. Niri wasn't supposed to die. That couldn't be how everything was meant to be. Ria had learned that life could be cruel, but it couldn't be _this_ cruel, could it? Her knees became weak. She couldn't support herself anymore, and fell to the ground in front of the girl that had become a sister to her. Her laugh; gone. Ria started to cry. Her smile; gone. The tears poured out, and Ria tried to control them. They kept coming.

She would never complain to Ria about school again. She would never roll her eyes like she used to when Ria tried to convince her that there was a ghost in her closet. _It's not fair!_ Ria thought. If Niri were alive, she would've said, "Life's not fair." That was the quote that had always snapped Ria out of it when she was wallowing in self-pity. This time it didn't do a thing to help, because self-pity wasn't at all the problem.

The tears did not subside, but Ria's brain started returning to the present slowly. The first thing Ria noticed was sound. There were footsteps again. They were behind her, inching hesitantly closer. If it was _him… _if it was that _thing._ He was one of them. One of the creatures that had done this to her. She'd kill him. She'd KILL him!

Ria jumped up and whirled around on her heels, suddenly energized and filled with a terrible rage. It was him. Ria hoped his little robot would stand back. She didn't mind him as much. "YOU!" she said, taking a step in Zim's direction.

"Eh?"

"YOU! IT'S _YOUR_ FAULT!"

Zim stared blankly. Ria's tears were still pouring out uncontrollably, but she managed to choke out, "She was my best friend…" before her weak and sad emotions returned and she ended up falling to her knees again. Thousands of emotions were swirling in Ria's head, and she just sat there unable to stop crying. The Irken above her seemed, for the first time since he'd first discovered Ria's hiding place, speechless. "Uh, ok then, Zim is leaving now."

"Aww!" said the little robot. "I don't wanna!"

Despite the robot's protests, two sets of footsteps started fading away. Good. Ria just wanted to be alone. She stayed in that spot crying for quite a while, until she noticed that the distant sounds of explosions she had heard before had not silenced. Her parents could be out there. She wiped the tears from her face and stood up. She had to go look for her parents. If they died… Niri was already gone. Ria couldn't stand the thought of loosing anyone else in her life.

She started across the street, heading into town. She saw terrible sights around her, flaming buildings, overturned cars. None of it broke through her invisible field of numbness. Nothing even felt like it was real life anymore. It seemed closer to some kind of horrible nightmare. She made her way up the street, running but still feeling like she was moving slowly.

There didn't seem to be a difference in the damage as Ria continued into town, which worried her. Once she went over one of the larger hills, she could see the big Irken ship hovering in the sky. Ria couldn't tell exactly where it was, but it seemed to be near if not directly over Ria's part of the neighborhood. She sped up, hoping that her house would be, by some miracle, unscathed.

The adrenaline pulsing through Ria's veins took care of the burn in her legs, but she was starting to notice that there was a cut on her forehead. Running had caused it to start bleeding again, and the blood was oozing down to her nose. She didn't stop to try and wipe it off though. There was no time for that. She had to get to her parents. They had to be alive… had to be.

Ria could see her street growing closer, but the destruction here seemed to be even worse in this area. Ria's street had a dead end at the end, and most of the smoke seemed to be coming from closer to the end. Ria didn't live at the end, but she didn't live in the front part either. Her house was somewhere in the middle, so it was still hard to tell if her house was likely to be safe. Ria hoped it didn't look like some of these buildings did; many of them were completely flattened._ Finally,_ Ria's yard came into view. To Ria's dismay, there was smoke drifting out from the house, which Ria couldn't see at the moment.

Her hands trembled as she slowed to a jog, stopping in front of her flaming house. Not her parents too. They had to have made it out. Ria wouldn't give up. She'd find them. "MOM!" she called. "DAD!" There was no answer. Ria didn't cry. She knew they were there somewhere. "MOM!" She tried again. "DAD!" Ria froze as she heard a faint voice reply to her second call. "DAD!" she said again. This time, the voice was clearer, but still very faint.

"Ria!"

Could it be that there was one glint of hope in this new, dark world? "DAD!" Ria called again, heading closer to the house. The heat from the flames radiated out and hit Ria's face, but she didn't let it faze her. "DAD!"

"Over here!" came the reply.

It was much closer this time, and the voice definitely belonged to Ria's father. She just didn't know exactly where it was coming from. "Dad?"

"RIA!"

That time it was really close, and Ria could tell it was coming from behind the house somewhere. She started running around to the back yard, wildly scanning the area for her dad. There he was. His foot was deeply entangled in the garden hose, and he was covered in ashes and looked burnt in places. Other than that, he seemed alright. "Dad…" Ria whimpered, kneeling down at his side and tugging at the hose.

"Ria," Dad said, his voice stressed and afraid. "Get away from here."

Ria shook her head. "I won't!" she protested. "Not without you and mom!" Ria luckily was an only child, and didn't have any siblings to worry about. That didn't mean that she wasn't worried about her parents. In fact, being without siblings to keep her company if she lost them, she was _more_ worried about her parents.

"Honey, you've got to get away from this place. I don't know where your mom is, I don't even know-"

Ria cut him off there. "She's alive dad, I know it. Don't talk like that!" Ria was completely caught off guard that her dad would even have a thought like that, much less actually say it out loud. He was always an optimist, and brave and confident enough to get through anything you threw at him and finish strong. Ria gave the green plastic devil hose a final tug and it fell to the ground. "It's off dad! We have to go!" He didn't move.

This could not be Ria's dad. Joseph C. Bruin did not act this way! He was always the one that solved the problems himself, never needed help or even a pat on the back to get him through, even though he did appreciate the encouragement. "DAD!" Ria said again, pulling her dad's arm and leading him away from the slowly disintegrating building. "She was in the bedroom…" Dad muttered.

Ria got a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, but she had to be strong. She wasn't sure how she should respond to what her dad just said, so she nodded in his direction. "Come on dad, we have to go…" Ria trailed away. Where _did_ they have to go? Ria looked into the sky, which was glazed over with smoke, and out to the hills that were speckled with bright orange dots that could be made by a home not unlike her own. Was there any safe place left? And where was the army? The navy? Even the police seemed to have been swept from the face of the Earth.

Ria glanced up at the Irken ship again. _Not that there's much they could do against __**that**__ It's not fair!_

"_Life's not fair."_

She glanced up at her dad again, who was still staring blankly at nothing. Ria didn't know where to go, but there had to be someplace safer than here. "Come on dad," Ria repeated, tugging on her dad's arm. "We're going someplace safer." Her dad took a slow step forward, following solemnly after his daughter. He was moving so slowly. He wasn't his usual assertive self. He just followed Ria like a zombie slave. Not even his usually all-telling eyes held any expression. Was it possible to have your soul ripped away? If it was, that seemed to be the case with Dad.

The ground rattled again as the ship resumed its intense firing. Ria gave her dad a hard tug and led him out onto the street, starting to quicken her pace. Anywhere seemed safer than here at the moment. Ria pulled her dad out in front of a lady who was screaming something about intergalactic peace and running toward the ship. Poor lady. The woman tripped over herself trying not to run into Ria, and then must have decided that she didn't care if she ran into people. Ria had to yank her dad out of the screaming woman's path so he wasn't trampled while in this stupor.

The insanity on the street was doubling each moment that Ria stood there, so she made her move and darted out into the street. Carefully weaving through flocks of people and evading rampant citizens, Ria started to make her way out of her neighborhood and into the downtown area. It seemed as if she was taking forever to move forward, and with the crowds around it could have very well been an hour before she reached the main part of town.

The normally busy and bright part of the city was now covered in a thick cloud of smoke and ash, starting to blow away but still thick enough to block most sunlight. Only small specks of the golden light sliced through the heavy cloud, causing small spots and patches to appear along the sidewalk and road. Ria didn't have much time or sense left in her brain to really sort out the different people that she passed, but something caught her eye just as she was coming up toward the pet store. In one of the golden spots of light, she thought she saw a flash of green and red. A very… familiar shade and combination.

No, it was probably just someone wearing those colors. Still, Ria paused and wavered, not sure whether to go straight ahead or take a quick detour in another direction. She shook her head. There was no time to go a different way. She started walking again, turning to make sure that her dad was alright, and then turning around to a sight that almost gave her a heart attack. It was Zim, the little Irken that she'd met at the Skool. Or at least, where the skool used to be. That was beside the point, though.

"Zim!" Ria cried, taking a step backward and almost running into her dad. He was getting a little annoying, and even a bit scary. Why wasn't he snapping out of it already?

"You," Zim said coldly, taking a step closer. "I know you had something to do with it. Don't deny it!"

Ria shook her head, starting to pull her dad around the tiny alien and his robot trying to block her path. "Look," she said. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about. I've got to get-"

"DON'T DENY IT!"

"Ok, ok, _what_ happened Zim? I don't have time for your… your…"

"My base! It's been destroyed! What did you do to it? I know you tried to do it as some sort of vengeance for what my leaders are doing!"

"I didn't do anything to your… base."

"LIES! TELL ZIM THE TRUTH NOW!"

"I-"

"NOW!"

"I-"

"NO-OW!"

"OKAY ALREADY!"

Zim finally stopped yelling, staring at Ria intently. "I, um, yeah, it was my _terrible vengeance!_ Feel my vengeance Zim!" she said, trying again to weave around Zim and his robot. Zim stepped in front of her again.

"Not so fast, smelly _human_ child!"

Ria grunted in exasperation. "HELP!" she cried out, hoping that a crowd of humans would get Zim to let her pass. "ALIEN!" Ria looked around, hoping that someone was running to her rescue, and then realized that the reason why all of this chaos was happening was because of aliens. Everyone was having an alien problem at the moment, why would they care about _hers?_ "Zim, I'm leaving now. Why should you care who destroys me, your leaders probably will anyway! They'll do a much better job than _you!" _

Zim's expression faltered, and then grew angrier. Looks like Ria had struck a nerve. She looked to her dad, starting to back up as the Irken growled in rage. Then, unexpectedly, several spider-like metal legs sprouted from the silver and red thing on Zim's back, and he was suddenly looming over Ria's head on some of the sharpest looking things Ria had ever seen. Her heart started to pound. This was more serious than she'd thought. "Um…" she said, trying to take a steady step backwards but stumbling over her own feet. "C-Can we just forget what I just said?"

The robot randomly clapped his hands, and his master sneered. "I'm afraid not." A lethally sharp leg rose up off the ground, preparing to strike. Ria closed her eyes. So this was it then? Was her life really about to be over? Sixteen years seemed like a long time when you didn't think about it for too long, but when her memories started flowing quickly through her brain like a fast moving slide show, she realized that it wasn't that long at all. Barely even a second. In the broad scheme of things, sixteen years didn't even matter. It wasn't even a fifth of a century.

Ria took another deep breath, and then noticed that the metal had not yet driven through her, she had not yet been sent to the final resting place with Niri. She opened one eye, peeking up at Zim. He was still sitting in the same position, staring down at her and poised to strike. Yet he didn't. "Well!" Ria said. "What are you waiting for?" Zim opened his mouth and Ria readied herself for another long talking session, but it didn't come. Instead her reply was another bright flash of light, and the ground lightly trembling.

The ship was must have been coming back, taking another quick sweep across town before moving on. "You had better hurry," Ria taunted. "If you wait much longer, someone else will get to me first." Zim growled again and pulled the metal leg back a few more inches. Aimed straight for her chest, it started coming down. Ria squeezed her eyes shut, knowing in a few seconds it would all be over. Then pain came, not in her chest, but in her arm as the sharp metal sliced through the sleeve of her sweatshirt. Ria stumbled back and fell to the ground, too shocked to even catch herself. "…the heck…" she muttered to herself.

Warm red blood leaked from the deep cut and flowed steadily down her arm, but that wasn't the main thing on her mind. "Hah! You missed that on purpose. There couldn't have been an easier shot, you're just _weak_ Zim!" It was all coming together now. Zim said he'd been trying to conquer Earth for six years, yet Ria hadn't even noticed any changes at all. Until now, that is, but this wasn't Zim's doing. It was his leaders'. And it must've been his leaders that destroyed his base too. They didn't _really_ think he'd capture the Earth. They probably just needed him out of the way.

"Did you hear me? _Weak!"_ Ria spat again, pulling herself to her feet. "If you couldn't even kill one human, what makes you think that you could take over an entire planet of them?"

"LIES! Zim could have killed you easily. Yes, so easily that you would have been dead before you were even born!"

Ria sighed. She saw why his leaders wanted to get rid of him. "First of all, that doesn't make sense. Second, why didn't you just kill me then?" Zim took another step toward Ria, his metal legs clacking against the sidewalk. A few people that had been running by stopped to stare, but then continued on their way, barely even sparing a glance behind their shoulder. Ria's dad simply watched, barely even looking surprised. He was definitely scaring her now. The ship was getting even closer now, and Ria could actually see it speeding through the sky straight for them.

She had to get her dad out of there, now. She reached out and grabbed the nearest metal leg, pushing it so that it bent at the joint and Zim stumbled forward. It barely gave her even half a second to get a head start, but it was just enough. As Zim's legs started clacking behind her, the Irken ship resumed its firing. It was a lot closer this time, and Ria even felt a bit of heat radiate from whatever had been in the ship's path.

Then, barely a second later, there was another explosion that was even closer. Ria started to figure out what was happening, but she was too late. They couldn't out run it. All they could do was hope. The third explosion was the one that would finish them off. She saw the light, and her heels dug into the ground out of some type of strange instinct. Something cold and metal crashed into her back, something crashed to the ground, and her dad's hand was somehow wrenched from hers as the heat rushed in. Just as everything in Ria's view seemed to glow a bright orange color, she thought that she heard a small voice shout, "S'PLO-O-ODEY!" She must have just been hearing things.

The wall. The remnants of a brick wall. That's what her back was leaning on. She felt the chalky red dust of the bricks crumbling behind her arm. She had been thrown against it, she supposed, during the explosion. Although it had only been a few minutes ago, it felt like forever. Her dad… he was gone. She didn't know if he was _dead,_ he had just vanished.

She remembered his hand pulling away from hers, but there was no way he could have been thrown too far. He should have been right there when the fires died down. He wasn't. So she was deserted. Left alone. She wasn't completely alone, but she might as well have been. She was left with Zim, and his quirky little robot with the annoyingly cheerful disposition. It wasn't fair.

"_Life's not fair."_

Zim hadn't said a word, even when Ria had used the best insults to his people that she could think of. She hated to admit it, but she kind of wanted him to talk. She hated the silence. It reminded her of the way her dad had been, just before she lost him in that terrible devastation. The robot, which was standing and rocking back and forth on his heels, looked at Ria.

"YOU GOTS LO-O-NG HAIRS!" he shouted. His voice echoed through the silent ghost town that had once been Ria's home. Ria nodded.

"Yep," she muttered. She looked at Zim, who didn't even return her gaze. He brushed some ash off his forehead and stared straight ahead. Something was obviously on his mind, and Ria wondered if it had anything to do with what his leaders had done.

"What's your name?" the robot asked.

"I'm Ria."

The robot cocked his head and stared blankly. After a moment of silence, he said, "I'M GONNA CALL YOU LONG HAIRS!" Ria raised her eyebrows, thinking of a few weird meanings one might get out of that name. "Um…" she said, not able to think of anything else to add.

"Or…" the blue-eyed robot said. He started ranting about several different names that he wanted Ria to go by, so she just let her mind wander. It thought back to memories of when the ruins in front of her were a bright, busy town. Of course, that had been only a few hours ago. It felt like forever. The sun had slipped down underneath the horizon. It wasn't safe to be sitting out here in the dark. Even if Ria thought all the crazies and dangerous animals were dead by now, you could never be sure.

She stood and brushed the dirt off her now torn and bloodstained jeans, and looked down at the little robot, who was still carrying on. "Hey," she said. He paused and looked at her eagerly. "How about you call me Ria?" Robot-child smiled and nodded. Ria smiled back. That was too easy. "Ok. Now I have to go… I'll, uh, see you later?" The robot hung his head.

"Aww…" he sighed.

Ria mustered a weak smile. "I'll come back some other time, ok?" He nodded slowly. Ria started walking away, not exactly sure where she was going, but when she passed Zim he finally spoke.

"Where are _you_ going human?" Ria groaned. Maybe she shouldn't have wanted him to speak. She shrugged. "I'm not sure."

"Hah! Leaving without a plan. Only a foolish human would attempt something so… stupid!"

"Yeah? Well what's your plan, oh great and mighty Zim? I'd love to hear it!"

Zim looked thoughtful for a moment, averting his eyes to stare up at the sky, and then said, "My plan… is to follow you!" A little burst of laughter escaped Ria's lips. It wasn't at all a time to laugh, considering the day's events, but she couldn't hold it back. "No, no no NO!" she said. "There's no way I'm letting some delusional alien and his chirpy robot follow _me_ around!" The robot must have heard that last part, because he stood up and ran to Ria's side, screaming, "PLEASE! PLEASE!" Ria shook her head.

"No, I can't-"

"AAAGGGHHHH!"

Ria cringed and took a step backwards. "GIR!" Zim said, standing and grabbing the robot's arm. "What did I tell you about the screaming?"

"Uhhh… don't put your experiments in 'em?"

Zim sighed. "No GIR. That's about your waffles." Ria shook her head. It looked like a good opportunity to escape since Zim and GIR were distracted, so Ria slowly made her down the plant-less path where a sidewalk had once been. The only evidence of that were the large chunks of concrete that littered the ground every now and then. If it were a normal night, she would have taken this path to skool the next day. It wasn't a normal night, though. It would never be a normal night again. Ria continued on, walking slowly past the park, and quickening her pace at the skool. She didn't even want to be _near_ that place anymore. Memories came to her when she looked at it, but she shook them away.

A few minutes later, she came to a place where she thought a diner used to be. It had crumpled to the ground, but a large chunk of the wall was left with a few trees thrown over it. It would make a decent roof, and she could spend the night there. She carefully stepped inside, stepping gingerly over things lying on the ground that she didn't even try to identify. Part of an old booth had been thrown over on its side, so Ria shoved most of the rocks and dust off of it so that she'd have a place to sleep.

Not that she'd be sleeping, but it wouldn't hurt to lie down and rest her aching muscles. She scooted awkwardly onto the old seat, probably manufactured before comfort was invented, and laid down on her back, staring at the trees above her. She was actually starting to get a bit sleepy when she saw something glowing in the trees above her. Two cyan eyes to be exact. And there was a voice, whispering to someone named GIR, telling them to be quiet. Ria sighed loudly. It was going to be a long night.

***yawns* well I hoped you liked it. I wrote most of it while extremely tired. Funny story really. I was stuck trying to write this one part (the part with a lot of dialogue with Ria and Zim out on the street). I spent the night at a friends house last night, and we fell asleep around three am or so. Then that whole part came to me in a dream. Dialogue and all. Creepy huh? So I woke up, grabbed a pen and paper, wrote the whole thing down, and went back to sleep. Then my friend woke me up at five am to play pranks on her evil siblings (which I couldn't pass up), so I have barely gotten any sleep. But you people don't care about my boring life, so I won't bother you anymore. Bye! REVIEW!**


	3. Chapter 3: Psycho

**Alright everybody! Chaptah numbah three!**

**I don't have any new reviwers this time... :P but i suppose GIR can just give another hug to my two faithful reviwers... i'm sure they wont mind ;D**

**Me: Ok, CullenGirl14...**

**GIR: YAY! *hugs***

**Me: And RoboticMasterMind.**

**GIR: YAY AGAIN! *hugs***

**Disclaimer: I don't own Invader Zim. That would be awesome though.**

**

* * *

**

_Ria_

The eyes blinked at her, and Ria sighed. "I can see you up there," she said. Zim growled. "You blew our cover!" he shouted. "NO I DIDN'T!" There was a cracking sound from the tree above, and a tiny blue-eyed robot came tumbling down from his previous resting place in the branches above. He landed on the ground in front of Ria's feet with such a loud thud that she thought for a moment he might have been broken. Fortunately, (or maybe unfortunately) he sat up and blinked, his eyes lighting up the darkness.

"HI!" he said. Ria sat up and looked at him.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Master brought me with him!"

Ria looked up into the entanglement of branches above her. "Zim?" she said with another heavy sigh. "You might as well come down already."

"Zim is not here!" he called down. Ria didn't know if he was joking or not, but she didn't think so. A grin tugged at her lips and a giggle tickled her throat.

"Zim… come on down." There was a moment of silence, and then the branches rustled again, and a little green Irken came quickly climbing down. He swung from the branches of the tree and onto the trunk, making his way easily to the ground. "What are you doing here?" Ria asked almost as soon as the Irken's feet touched the ground.

"Zim was simply seeking a sheltered place to spend the night," he said. "Right GIR?" GIR looked at his master blankly. He shook his head. "Never mind." Ria let the grin plant itself on her face for just a second, and then took it away with a little flick of her hair.

"Look, since you guys walked all the way here, you might as well go ahead and stay here, but you _cannot_ bother me, do you understand?"

GIR happily shook his head no, and Zim said, "Fine, ZIM does not care where the earth girl sleeps! He just did not want to stay in the open. Come on GIR, we are going… AWAY!" Zim gave a curt nod in Ria's direction and started marching back toward the tree. Ria rolled her eyes. As she sank back down onto the booth, she heard another rustling from the trees. Really? Where they _ever_ going to stop making noise? This wasn't fair.

"_Life's not fair."_

* * *

Ria woke up in front of her house, lying on the grass._ That's funny…_ She thought. _I don't remember falling asleep here._ She looked up at her house, which no longer appeared to be damaged by what the Irken ship had done. Ria's eyes sparkled with realization. She must have dreamed the whole thing! It still didn't explain why she was sleeping out on the grass, but it had to be true!

She ran toward the house and up the porch steps, grabbing the handle of the doorknob and trying to turn it. It didn't open. "Shoot," she muttered. "Locked." Well, that was no problem. She knocked on the door, calling for her parents. "It's me!" she said. No one answered, and there didn't seem to be any movement or sounds from inside. Ria peeked back at the driveway, but both of the cars were still there. Where were they? "Mom! Dad!" Ria called again. Still nothing. She sighed and went around to the back door, hoping that she'd have better luck there.

When she reached the back door, it was strangely unlocked. Mom never left one door unlocked and not the other. Goosebumps rose on Ria's arms, but she shook it off. It must have just been a mistake. Ria slowly stepped into the kitchen, looking for anything strange or out of the ordinary, but everything seemed to be right. "Mom?" Ria called, noticing that she still saw no signs of either of her parents. "Dad?" She continued walking through the house, but stopped at the staircase as she saw a small shadow dart by. "Hello?" Ria said, starting to get an uneasy feeling as if she were being watched. She saw another shadow race by behind her, and whirled around. "Hello?" she said again. She tried to call for her parents, but only a little squeak escaped her lips.

She cleared her throat and tried again. "Mom? Is that you? Da-ad!" Ria crept closer to the place where she'd seen the shadow racing by, peeking carefully around corners before she went ahead. This had to be some sort of elaborate prank by her dad. He always pulled stuff like this on April Fool's Day… what was the date? Another shadow ran across the hall, and Ria rolled her eyes. "Ok dad, you got me!" Ria waved her hands in some sort of surrender.

When her dad didn't jump out from a closed door, or from behind a corner, Ria's uneasy feeling returned. "_Dad?"_ she whimpered. The shadows seemed to be appearing more often now, and Ria had to keep turning to try to locate the sources of them. _"Ria!"_ A voice hissed. Where was it coming from? _"Ria!" _There were more of them now, all coming from different directions, repeating themselves. "Who's there?" Ria shouted, in a panic. "Stop that!" The voices continued, eventually taking shape into familiar people's voices. Niri. Her dad. Her mom.

"_Ria, get away from here!"_

"_I hate history."_

"_Honey, are you up in your room?"_

"_She was in the bedroom…"_

"_Hah! Look, let me tell ya' something. Life's not fair."_

Ria fell to her knees, pressing her hands to her ears in a desperate attempt to block out the horrible voices. "STOP!" she shouted. The sounds continued spiraling through her brain. Would this ever end?

"Make it stop!" Ria screamed. "Make it… stop…"

* * *

"Make…it…stop…" Ria grumbled, slowly slipping back into reality. She blinked her eyes open, the sun's brightness shocking her. She'd slept all night already? "YAY!" GIR cried from somewhere nearby. "You're awake!" Ria groaned as she tried to sit up. Her back was killing her from spending the night on that horrible booth, not to mention the fact that her nightmare had probably made her sleep restlessly.

Ria shuddered as she tried to clear the dream out of her head. She'd expected she'd have some sort of nightmare, but she never could have prepared herself for how real and vivid it would seem. GIR bounced up onto her legs, and Ria let out a small yelp of pain. He was heavier than he looked, or at least he was when your legs were sore. "HI!" he said, as if seeing Ria for the first time.

"Hey GIR…" Ria mumbled. Off of some kind of impulse, Ria asked, "Where's Zim?" and then wondered why she cared. GIR pointed up to the tree. "He's still up there! He didn't want to come wif me to see ya!"

"Mm-hm," Ria said with a nod. She bent her knees, waving her hand to shoo GIR off her legs. He giggled and slid to the ground. Ria sat up, getting a good stretch in before standing up. Then she looked around, looking at her surroundings in daylight for the first time. This diner… this place was where she'd come to eat with her old boyfriend on a regular basis. Mixed emotions rose up in her chest when Ria thought of Devvon. That didn't matter now though.

Ria needed to find something to drink; her throat was as dry as the cracked earth and cement beneath her feet. She started walking out from underneath the tree, taking careful glances around for a pipe of some sort. Ria could remember this part of town. It had been sort of a mixed area, one of those quaint little towns with a bit of everything. It had been pretty around here too. "Where're you goin'?" GIR asked, again seeming kind of sad.

"I'll be back," Ria said. "I'm just going to look around."

"I WANNA COME!"

"No GIR, you have to stay with your master."

GIR sighed. "Ok…"

Ria smiled at him encouragingly and turned around again, continuing on her way. Almost all of the buildings had pipes sticking out of their cracking foundations, but none of them seemed to be working. How was it that in the movies the pipes were all spewing water like a mountain spring? As Ria was pacing away from the site of an old grocery store, she saw something sticking out of the rubble that sent goose bumps up her arms.

A leg.

It was definitely a man's leg, clothed in jeans and the shoe gone. Ria shivered. She knew that people had died, but seeing a body just made it all seem more _real._ She wondered if she should bury him or something, but she didn't have any way to dig a hole, so she whispered, "Bless his soul." Then she started walking quickly away. She didn't want to be near this place anymore.

* * *

Ria did eventually find a pipe that leaked enough water for her to get a nice, long drink. She smiled as the water rushed down her throat, soothing the dry feeling. It wasn't very cool, but it was still delicious. After her drink, Ria took a seat on a large chunk of cement and stared up at the clouds. She remembered how her mom used to tell her that they looked like things.

Ria had thought it was weird back then, since she never really saw shapes in clouds, but now she wished her mom would just tell her_ one more_ shape. It would be one more precious memory that Ria could keep locked away in her never-forgetting mind. She stared intently at a cloud, trying to form a shape in her mind, but nothing came. Ria scowled. Why was it hard for her to make a stupid shape out of a cloud?

Ria kicked a pebble and it slid across the ground until it hit a cement block. The sun was already past its halfway point in the sky, so Ria should head back to her little shelter. She stood and started walking back the way she came, although her tired legs ached in protest. She ignored the pain. It was something that Ria would be in for a while now, whether physical or mental, so she should learn to deal with it. As Ria made her way back to the shelter, she realized how far she'd walked. She figured she'd walked for a few hours, considering how much of the day she'd wasted, but she didn't know she'd gone _this_ far.

Ria hoped she'd be back before it got dark. It would be creepier and harder to find her way back if it was dark outside. She jammed her hands into her jeans pockets and broke into an almost-jog.

* * *

Ria smiled as the trees came into her view. She was almost there! It was getting dark, but she was pretty much there now, so it was fine. The bad news was that she was thirsty again, but she'd have to wait until tomorrow to get more water. As Ria grew close enough to the shelter to see that Zim had climbed down from the tree and was talking to GIR, someone jumped at her from behind and grabbed her shoulders.

Ria went to scream, but the person behind her wrapped their arm around her neck. She struggled and dug her fingernails into the person's arm. The attacker, who was a man, screamed and loosened his grip just long enough for Ria to grab his arm and twist it at the elbow. He stumbled back, staring at her murderously. Ria tried to get a quick peek into his mind to see what he wanted from her. She got a quick glimpse of some kind of weird emotion like fear and anger mixed together, and a need for vengeance. He was insane. Totally insane.

"Why'd they kill her? And why the kids? Do you have them?" He was shaking violently, staring with a now wild look in his eyes. Ria backed away slowly, hoping the stranger would leave on his own. She was not so lucky. He took a step forward. "And my brother? We never made up you know… remember?" Ria wasn't sure how to answer that, so she shook her head. "YES YOU DO!" he screamed. "I KNOW! YOU KNOW!"

The man reached out his hand, making a quick grab for Ria's arm. Ria glanced into his mind and tried to get an idea of his next move. He was about to kick her. Ria jumped away and grabbed his arm, pulling him to the ground. He stumbled but was quickly standing up straight again. "DON'T PUSH!" he said, lunging for Ria with his hands poised like two dangerous pairs of claws. Ria kicked him in the shin, and when he leaned over in pain, Ria delivered a quick punch to his chin and sent him stumbling backwards.

She wasn't completely sure if fighting him was the right thing to do, but if she didn't there was no telling what he'd do to her. The insane man stood up again, his right eye now twitching. "Why would you do that?" he pleaded, his voice quivering. Ria started to back away once again, and once again, the man followed her. "Come back… I won't hurt you…" Ria was smart enough not to break into a flat-out run, but she sped up a little. So did her attacker. She nearly growled in frustration as she looked at the little shelter that she'd been so close to. Why couldn't _anything_ go right in her life anymore? Oh yeah.

"_Life's not fair."_

Ria swept her gaze quickly from right to left, hoping for some sort of inspiration to strike. Nothing popped into her head. And unfortunately, the crazed stranger was speeding up and growing closer to Ria. "Uh…" she stuttered. What was he planning? Ria was about to search his mind for answers once more, but he jumped at her before she could. A scream slipped through Ria's lips as she recoiled in shock, and then she weaved around the maniac and started running back towards the shelter.

A few seconds later, she felt his footsteps behind her. Why was he still after her? "Get away!" she said, sliding to a stop and jamming her heel into his foot. Then she broke into a sprint again. When she came to the shelter, Ria climbed over a couple blocks of cement and a piece of neon lighting, stumbling clumsily into her makeshift home, and continued running after that. Where had Zim and GIR gone? Hadn't they been right in her line of vision just a minute ago?

Ria jumped over the booth where she'd slept last night and then climbed over a little piece of brick wall to hide. Psychotic-man must have seen where she'd hidden, because he was coming right at her again. She tried to quickly scoot backwards, but ended up just tumbling onto her back in her flurry of panic. Psychotic-man leaned over the chunk of bricks and stared at her madly, and Ria couldn't even put together the thoughts that were racing through his mind. Just attempting to put one reasonable thought together gave her a headache.

Psycho reached his hand out, making a grab for Ria's arm, but she pulled away just in time and jumped to her feet. The psycho man stepped forward again, and Ria tried to make a snap decision whether to run or fight. _Tried_ to make a decision; she didn't have time. Psycho jumped at her for the thousandth time, it seemed, and Ria jumped back and flinched, ready for whatever he was about to do.

She expected to hear him screaming or shouting, she expected to feel him hitting her, but all she heard was a thud. All she felt was a whoosh of air. She opened one eye, and what she saw made her mind reel in confusion. In front of her, instead of the crazed maniac who had stood there just a moment ago, there was a spidery, metal leg; Psychotic man's sleeve was caught underneath. Ria's eyes slowly traced it upward, until they met with the ruby-red ones of Zim.

He quickly broke their gaze, turning his attention to the man who was now struggling to get away. "What…" Ria mumbled. "…wh-what was that?" Zim straightened his posture, looking rather proud.

"Yes, Zim's aim is quite impressively precise. None of you stupid hu-umans could have done this as well as ZIM!"

"No, I've heard all that _'Zim is superior'_ crap before, I'm asking _why_."

Zim shrugged. "I consider this place my temporary base at the moment. An Irken invader could never let his base go unprotected!"

"Really…" Ria said. She glanced down at her own torn sleeve and mumbled, "I thought you might just have something against long sleeves."

Zim was much too proud to even listen to what she was saying, because he showed no signs of even hearing what she'd just said. Ria rolled her eyes and looked down at her shoes, wondering why _she_ had to be the one stuck with Zim. A ripping sound caught Ria's attention, and her head snapped back up in just enough time for her to react to the maniac now coming for her again.

Her arm swung out and hit him in the chest, and when he stepped back she kicked him in the groin. He doubled over in pain, letting loose a long string of curses along with a few gibberish words that didn't even make sense. Ria didn't waste the perfect opportunity to grab a stray brick from the ground and hit him over the head. She grabbed another and held it above Psycho's skull until he had been motionless for about two minutes; she then deemed it safe to lower her guard a little. She dropped the brick by her feet with a sigh and let her arms droop in exhaustion. "Your combat skills…" Zim began. Ria groaned and cut him off.

"I know, I know, they are inferior to yours because I'm human… whatever."

Zim paused. "Well… that does sound much better than what I had planned to say."

Ria raised her eyebrow. "Oh yeah? And what _were_ you planning to say Zim?"

Zim straightened his posture again, probably hoping to make himself seem bigger. "It was nothing! It does not matter now!" Ria tried to inch her way into Zim's mind, searching for clues of what Zim was about to say, but she only felt pride and arrogance. She once again rolled her eyes.

Then she looked back down to the slowly breathing body below her, and ran her fingers through her hair with an exasperated sigh. "So, what do you wanna do with…" she waved her hand over the still figure. Zim followed her gaze, staring at it for a moment. "I mean," Ria continued. "We can't just leave him there." Zim nodded curtly.

"Well I agree that we must dispose of it somehow…" GIR suddenly poked his head out from behind the brick wall, smiling.

"HI RIA! HI MASTAH!" he shouted.

The body on the ground twitched, but was then still again. Zim turned and looked at the little robot on the ground. "Hi GIR," Ria said. The body on the ground gave another slight twitch, and she took a step back. "Maybe…" Ria said. "Maybe we should just leave." Zim scoffed.

"What, do you expect ZIM to just abandon the perfect base that he has just found? Hah! Stupid human!" Ria growled. If she had to hear those words one more time…

"You know what? I don't even know why I'm asking what _you_ want to do! I don't need you! I don't even_ want_ to be around you, all you ever do is insult my people! Go ahead; stay here at your stupid… BASE, whatever! I don't care! I'm out of here!" With that, Ria stormed right out of the old diner, not even taking a second glance over her shoulder. Well, at least not until she thought Zim wouldn't be looking anymore.

When she saw that he was still staring at her, she just gave him a final nod and pretended as if she'd intended for him to see her look back. Whatever.

* * *

Ria was able to find herself another decent place to sleep, although it wasn't as good as the place she'd left. It wasn't that far away from where Zim and GIR were staying; in fact, it was barely even a five minute walk. It was what Ria suspected had once been a gas station; judging by the amount of ash and charred wood there had been a pretty huge fire here at one time.

However, the gas station's store was still partly intact. There was a roof over a lot of it, and plenty of corners to curl up in. Still, when Ria laid down on the mix of dirt and linoleum floor, she almost missed that uncomfortable booth. In fact, she definitely did. It wasn't worth dealing with Zim though. Ria got an angry feeling inside her chest just thinking of some of the insults he'd thrown at the human race over the past one-and-a-half days.

A cool breeze blew, and Ria shivered. It hadn't been this cold the night before, or at least it didn't ever _feel_ this cold. Eventually, Ria started to descend into a light, nightmare plagued sleep.

_There was fire all around. Ria saw her dad. She saw her mom. She saw Niri. They were all close by, but the fire grew bigger and swallowed them up. She couldn't see where they went, but she could hear them scream her name. she called for them, but they did not return. The fire was coming for Ria now… this was it…_

Ria snapped out of her dream, suddenly wide awake and breathing heavily. "It's just a dream…" she whispered to herself. She still shook in fear despite that fact. It didn't seem like she'd slept for long; a few hours maybe, but there was still no way she was going to get back to sleep. Especially on the ground. Ria ran her fingers through her hair, yawning and feeling her heartbeat start to slow to a normal pace again.

Unfortunately, a sight outside the building brought it right back to a breakneck speed. Psycho-man was back, wandering around just outside. Ria gasped and crouched down as low as she could, slithering on the ground and trying to find a hiding place. There wasn't really anywhere to hide. She could get behind a shelf that had been thrown on its side and broken apart, but it was the wiry kind and couldn't really do much to hide her.

Still, it was something, and Ria inched behind it and crouched lower. She could hear Psycho mumbling something from outside, but it sounded like he was going away. She allowed herself to breathe again, feeling a wave of relief crash over her. Ria didn't move from her hiding place, though. She could still hear Psycho's voice, but it was faint. As the voice faded to being nearly inaudible, Ria started to sit up a little bit. As she started peeking up from her hiding spot, the side of her head banged against the metal shelf with a loud crash. She gasped and immediately threw herself against the ground again.

_Please, please, __**please**__ tell me he didn't hear that!_ Ria pleaded, squeezing her eyes shut. Unfortunately, Ria's plea went unanswered. A set of footsteps began moving toward her. Her breath caught in her chest, and she pushed herself onto her hands and knees, ready to stand and run if it was needed.

The footsteps stopped a few feet away, but Ria could see the dark shadow being cast from where Psycho was standing. _Turn around!_ She thought, hoping that somehow she'd transfer her thoughts into his mind. She was apparently unsuccessful, because Psycho started walking again. When he started coming up next to her, Ria jumped to her feet. His face appeared and his eyes widened when he saw her.

For a moment, Ria's feet were glued to their spots. When she realized he was going to make yet another jump for her, it was too late. She turned and tried to run anyway, but he grabbed her by the shoulders and slammed her against the wall. "Are you… that short girl?" he asked. Ria remembered the last time she'd answered no to one of his questions, so she figured that if she said yes to everything, he'd be fine with it. Problem solved.

"Yes."

"Really? You are? Well… I HATE HER!"

Ria cringed. Yeah, she was a _real_ problem-solver alright.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" he said.

Ria screamed and kicked him in the stomach. What had she done to him? Well, besides kicking him, punching him, and dropping a brick on his head that is. Psycho let go of her shoulders and Ria made a run for it. She ran out of the building and down the street, not even sure what direction she was going. All she knew was that she was trying to get away from the maniac who was trying to kill her.

He followed her down the street. This guy just _did not_ give up, did he? Ria was starting to get extremely tired, and her legs felt heavy. She had to keep going though… had to outrun him. Eventually though, she couldn't. Couldn't go one more step. She stumbled and fell to her knees, trying to stand but not able to get back on her feet. She couldn't even breathe right, and suddenly came to the realization that tears were steadily flowing from her eyes.

Psycho came out from behind her and grabbed her around the neck, his grasp metal tight. She couldn't breathe… her body started to get numb… her eyes started to close…. her struggle slowly stopped. Then the hand suddenly released her as there was a bloodcurdling scream. Ria crumbled to the ground, still not really able to breathe well, but starting to take in shuddering breaths.

She didn't realize where she was until she opened her eyes and saw the dead body, with a metal leg driven through its stomach. Ria screamed, turning her face away from the bloody mess on the ground. This just made it harder for her to breathe, and more tears started coming down her cheeks. She covered her face. Too many people. Too many people dying. The feeling had come back into her legs, but she still felt too weak to stand.

"You…Y-You… You k-killed him?" she bawled, not even uncovering her face. "He's d-dead now?"

"Yes. Zim was sick of this human returning and threatening us all."

"Why do you have to keep saving me?" Ria said. "I-I should be dead by now! If you didn't care about me I-I'd be d-dead too!"

"ZIM does not _care_ about you. He does not _care_ about anyone! ANYONE!"

"Well then, w-why am I still here?"

"I believe it is referred to as 'dumb luck'."

Ria did not reply. It was hard to speak when she was crying so hard. She curled up into a ball on the ground, never opening her eyes. She didn't want to see the body again. Ria didn't know if Zim was still close enough to hear, or if he'd left, but she decided to say it anyway.

"I hate you."

* * *

**Well, did you like? Don't forget to REVIEW, REVIEW, AND… REVIEW! And guess who shows up in the next chapter?**

**GIR: ME!**

**Me: You're already in this story GIR. No, it's really…**

**GIR: MEEE! *jumps on computer table***

**Me: Nooo!**

**~computer crashes to the floor~**


	4. Chapter 4: Dib

**Ok here is chapter 4! Finally! Sorry it took so long, the website has been giving me error reports every freakin' time I try to get on… plus I had a horrible case of writers block… plus this is just a hard chapter to write in the first place!**

**Ok, you know the drill, HUG TIME!**

**Me: This one's for RoboticMasterMind. **

**GIR: *hugs***

**Me: And we also have a new reviewer named Temyx Mew Mew Haerts.**

**GIR: *hugs***

**And that's all the hugs for today!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Invader Zim**

**

* * *

**

_Ria_

Ria eventually uncovered her face later in the night, and turned to look at the stars. She remembered that when she was little, she had some of those glowing star stickers on her ceiling, and counting them was the only way she could ever get to sleep. Ria almost smiled at the memory, but all of the other emotions churning inside of her drove the grin away from her face.

Another cool breeze blew, and Ria curled into an even tighter ball. Ria wished she had a blanket. What she wished even more was that she had control over her life again. A few days ago, Ria had power and control over things that happened in her life. A power that she took for granted. Back then, it was just how things were supposed to be; things were much more predictable. But who could have predicted _this?_ Not Ria, that's for sure.

Ria turned over on her stomach and traced her finger through the dirt. She was exhausted, but there was no way she would be able to get to sleep. Even if she did, the nightmares would only be worse now.

People said that nightmares were only dreams; that they couldn't do any harm. Sure, they couldn't really cause any physical injury, but what about inside someone's mind? It wouldn't be hard for dreams to make someone insane, especially if they occurred often enough. Ria swallowed. Her throat was dry again. She thought for a moment about going to look for water again, but she was too tired. Her body wanted to sleep, but her brain wouldn't allow it. She groaned quietly and turned onto her back again.

It must've been a while since she was chased here; the sky was starting to turn a dark blue already. Ria sat up, her back cracking once or twice, and scooted back to lean on a rock. Psycho's body had been moved, and Ria wondered when. Not that it was a bad thing. Ria didn't want to see it. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to think about it. It was so confusing… he had tried to kill her, yet she felt a little twinge of almost-guilt for his death. She shouldn't, but she supposed it must have just been some kind of strange compassion or something. After all, a lot of people had died already.

Ria ran her fingers through her hair and looked up at the sky again. The sun had inched even higher over the horizon. Well, it was morning. Ria stood up and looked around again. She didn't know where Zim and GIR had gone off to, but she didn't care. She didn't mind being all alone as long as her only other option was Zim. Her hands curled up into fists just at the thought of him. He was a jerk, a murderer, and just plain _stupid._ GIR, well, he wasn't so bad. Just annoying.

Ria decided to head off in search of water again. She took a quick peek behind the walls of the shelter and up into the trees, but Zim and GIR seemed to have left. Good. Maybe she could return and rest there tonight. Ria started walking away, heading in the same direction that she'd gone the day before. Hopefully she wouldn't have a run-in with another lunatic. She went up the street, although by the time she had traveled half of a mile, she was totally wiped out. Maybe she should have tried to sleep the night before after all.

Ria mentally encouraged herself to keep going for just a little while, no matter how much she didn't want to. It would be worth it when she reached that water. After a few minutes, Ria was sure that she couldn't take one more step. She stopped and sat down right in that spot, not even bothering to look for something to lean against or sit on. It was then that she realized how hungry she was. Her stomach growled. It had been forever since she'd had something to eat, and thoughts of food popped into her head. She would give anything for a big bowl of her mom's home-cooked stew, or some pizza, or… _any_ kind of food. Ria jumped to her feet.

Maybe some water would help, but she had to keep going if she wanted to find that out. She started walking again, but her short break hadn't provided her with any energy at all. Ria groaned. How much further? She must've already been walking for _hours._ She paused and took a quick look around. She hadn't even passed the grocery store that she'd first stopped at yesterday. It was going to be a long walk.

* * *

The sun was over halfway through the sky, and Ria was now desperate with thirst. She couldn't be too far now; some of her surroundings were starting to look familiar. After another moment or two, Ria could see the pipes up ahead. A miracle, almost. She tried to pick up the pace, but her legs were too heavy.

Ria reached the pipes as quickly as she could, and she leaned down to take a nice long drink. As soon as the water ran down her throat, all her nasty thoughts temporarily disappeared. Her lips had become dry and cracked, and they too immediately felt relief. _Finally. _

After a nice drink, Ria felt suddenly even more tired. She needed to lie down. There wasn't anything soft for her to lie on, and the terrain was pretty much all cement, with the occasional rock and dirt mixture here and there. Ria could just lay down right on the ground. Her back was already killing her from all the terribly awkward places she'd been sleeping lately, so this couldn't do too much damage. She shifted into yet another uncomfortable position to rest and stared up at the clouds.

* * *

Ria was running. She was afraid, but of what, she didn't know. She had to keep running, even though something was telling her not to go further. Up ahead, she could see a thick line of trees that she'd never seen before. Ria didn't really want to go into them, but she had to run from whatever was behind her. She darted into the trees, stumbling over plants and roots. The further she went, the thicker the trees seemed to get, until she couldn't see a thing.

She tried to keep going even after that, but the branches had caught on her clothing and the plants on the ground had tangled around her legs. And worst of all, they seemed to start tightening around her. Ria pulled and struggled, trying to make them let go. When she pulled, they got only tighter. "Help!" she called, but her cries were muffled by the thick layer of leaves above her. She couldn't escape. She was trapped here.

Forever.

* * *

Ria's eyes snapped open, and she was instantly wide awake. She was still on her back, looking at the sky, but the sun had slipped down below the horizon. It appeared the sun had only set a few moments ago; the sky still had a purple twinge to it. The calming sound of water flowing from the pipe and hitting the ground was still constantly there. What had woken Ria from her nightmare? Had it just scared her enough to jolt her out of such a sound sleep? _No, _Ria thought as she started to sit up. _There had to be something else._

She heard a faint sound from nearby, but she couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Ria forced her aching body to stand up and take a better look. She still didn't really see anything, but then again, it was pretty dark. "Hello?" she said. "Is anyone there?" There was another small sound, and Ria's senses went on high alert. She moved around slowly and cautiously, pausing at every sound, until she had searched the whole area. Then she let out a sigh of relief and sat down on a rock.

Her mind wandered to her dream. She was no mental therapist, but it wasn't hard to figure out what that dream meant. She felt trapped by her situation. Ria would have to fix that; she didn't want to go crazy. Then there was another noise. Ria whirled around and looked around wildly, finally meeting eyes with a familiar looking boy that was around her age.

He was wearing glasses, although he had small spider-web crack in one of the lenses, and his hair was an odd scythe like shape. He stood there motionless, and Ria took a cautious step toward him. She'd seen him before… "Dib?" she said, curiously looking the boy up and down. He adjusted his glasses, and then a look of recognition flashed in his eyes. "Hey, you're Ria, right?" Ria nodded vigorously, her greasy black hair flying around as she did so.

Finally, a _normal_ _human_ was in her presence again! Even if his head was a little abnormally large. Dib started walking past Ria, making his way to the pipes. He'd obviously come here for the same reason Ria had. Ria had never really known Dib well, so she really didn't know what to say. It wasn't like she was going to squeal and give him a hug or anything; she'd barely been able to recall his name. "So, uh…" she said as Dib leaned over the steady flow of water and took a drink. After another awkward silence, Dib stood up straight and asked, "Where have you been staying? I mean, I thought I would've seen you around…"

"Oh…" Ria said, not sure what she should say about the whole Zim fiasco. She shrugged. "Just… around. Random places, moving around a lot."

Dib nodded. "Well, I guess you could stay with us."

"Us? There are _more_ people!"

If there were more people, there could definitely be someone Ria knew. Maybe even her dad! "Well, just me and Gaz. My sister." Ria's heart sank a little, but she didn't let it show. And at least it was one more person! That was more than she'd seen since… well, it actually hadn't been that long, but it felt like forever. Ria nodded again. "Yes, yes, I defiantly want to! Where exactly are we staying, though?"

"Come on, follow me, I'll show you. And be quiet. I found a sasquatch footprint around here not too long ago, you know."

After those words left his mouth, Dib flinched as if he'd just said something incredibly stupid. If Ria were like those other kids, it would have been, but she didn't mind all that paranormal stuff. It was kind of interesting. "Cool," she said, keeping her voice low. Dib gave her look that was a mix between fascination and confusion. "You don't think I'm crazy?" he asked. Ria grinned.

"Oh, trust me Dib; I think you're plenty crazy. But that just means I am too." She flashed him a wide smile.

"Gee, you're pretty cheerful for someone whose town was blown to bits," Dib replied, though a sort of sideways grin was planted on his face during the whole comment. Ria scowled.

"Gosh Dib, thanks _so_ much for reminding me!"

"Sorry."

Ria shrugged. "Can't run from the truth. Well, you can, but you don't get very far before it catches up to you."

Dib nodded. "Interesting statement. Never heard that one before."

Ria shrugged again. "Eh, well, it's true."

Dib was leading Ria onto a path behind some buildings, one that she'd never seen before, with woods on their right side and buildings on their left. "Where is this place?" Ria asked, growing more aware that her surroundings were very unfamiliar. "Not much further," Dib said. Ria hoped not. She was tired again.

As the two reached a turn in the dirt path where the buildings and street made a curve in front of it and forced it the other way, Dib started heading back into the town instead. When they re-entered the world of metal and cement, Ria immediately realized where she was. The damage around here wasn't quite as bad as the other areas of town, but it was still a silent pile of rubble in most areas. One building, however, was almost fully intact.

It was the old car dealership. The cars in front of it were totaled, of course, but the building was in good shape except for the windows. "So is that where we're staying?" Ria asked, motioning to the building. Dib nodded. "Yeah, took me a while to find it, but it's great!" Ria picked up the pace, wondering if there was anywhere comfortable to sit in there. As she got closer, she could see a young girl sitting inside. She was holding something so broken that even without knowing what it was, Ria knew it was mangled beyond repair.

The young girl who was holding it must have been Gaz, the sister that Dib had mentioned earlier. Ria reached the window, which had been busted wide open, and jumped in. At the sound of Ria coming closer, Gaz looked up. Ria waved at her; a scowl was the only sort of reply she could get out of the purple-haired girl. "Who're you?" she questioned, waving whatever was in her hand as she spoke.

"I'm Ria," she said, holding out her hand. Gaz looked at it as if it was something minimally interesting and then said, "My name's Gaz." Ria nodded and dropped her hand to her side awkwardly. Dib ran up beside Ria, looking a little a bit anxious and glancing up at the sky every few seconds. "Did you see _that?"_ he said. Gaz gave a heaving sigh, and Ria followed Dib's gaze into the dark sky. There was plenty of cloud cover that night, but that's all Ria saw; clouds.

"No," she said. "What was it?"

"I… don't know. It looked like the Massive."

"The what?"

"That's the name of the Irken ship."

"How do _you_ know that?" Ria questioned. Ria knew that Dib was a pretty strong paranormal believer, but she wasn't sure exactly how much he knew about all this. "Uh," Dib was suddenly quite fascinated with a pebble on the ground next to his feet. "Well, I don't know if you'll believe me, but did you ever meet that kid Zim? From skool?" Ria raised an eyebrow. So, did Dib know too?

"Yeah…" she said, hoping she didn't have any kind of guilty look on her face.

"Well…"

"Hm?"

"_He'sanalien," _Dib mumbled quietly. Ria was pretty sure of what he'd said, but he'd said it in such a low voice that she had to make sure.

"Huh?"

"I knew it! You think I'm crazy! They _all_ think I'm crazy! One day they'll see! One day they'll-"

"DIB! Dib, calm _down! _I didn't hear you, that's all."

"Oh. Heh, oops."

"So…"

"I said Zim's an alien, ok?" Ria swallowed. Zim. That… stupid… Irken… thing! Ria clenched her hands into tight fists, turned around, and kicked a medium sized rock as hard as she could; it went flying across the building and ricocheted off the wall. "Uh, Ria? You… ok?" Dib asked. Ria turned around and forced a smile.

"Fine. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, no reason… you just seemed a little…"

"I'm fine," Ria repeated. "Really."

* * *

"Ria!" Ria screamed and sat up without thinking, and her forehead collided with Dib's. He stumbled backwards and clutched his face. "Oh, oh gosh! Sorry!" she said, rubbing her own forehead. "No problem," Dib said, wincing from the pain.

"What happened?" Ria asked. Dib shrugged. "Beats me. You were talking in your sleep. Moving around a lot. You woke Gaz up, and then she…" Dib gently rubbed the side of his arm and winced again. "…woke me up." Dib turned around to face his sister's seemingly sleeping figure. "And not very gently, by the way!"

"Whiner!"

Ria figured she must have had another nightmare, but she couldn't really remember it. "I… er… sorry. I guess I must've had a nightmare."

Dib shrugged.

"No problem. Happens to me often enough."

"I can imagine…" Ria said, looking around and taking notice of the time of night… morning actually. The sky was cloudy, but Ria could tell that the sun had started to rise. It was still early, and Ria probably could have fallen back to sleep considering the amount of sleep she'd gotten lately, but she didn't really want to. The exhaustion was worth shortening the nightmares… at least most of time.

Ria stood up and walked over to the window frame, poking her head outside. She was thirsty again. Ria could make that long walk back to the pipes, or she could wait and see if the clouds in the sky were rain-bearing. Licking her dry and cracked lips, Ria decided that she couldn't wait. "Hey," she said. She turned around to look at Dib, but he had curled himself against the wall again and must have been falling asleep.

Oh well, Ria would be back in no time. She hopped out the window, not wanting to take her chances against the razor sharp shards of glass that had once been a door, and started on her way back down the path she'd traveled on last night. It looked different since she was traveling during the day, but it was still pretty easy to find the way back to the familiar drinking spot. She smiled at the sight of the water, still flowing pretty heavily from the pipes. How long would it last?

Almost instantly after Ria's lips touched to the stream of water, she felt a droplet on the top of her head. Then another fell on her hand. She pulled away from her drink and looked up towards the sky. Sure enough, rain was starting to fall, quickly becoming heavier. At first, the rain felt good. Ria opened her mouth and swallowed some of it, and let the rest run down her face and clean the grime off of her.

After that, it quickly got miserable. It was cold, and made her clothes rub her and her shoes squish. Ria didn't feel like making the walk back in this rain; maybe there was some kind of shelter around here. Breaking into a jog and moving up the street, Ria glanced around and hoped for the best. At first, it didn't really seem like there was anything; buildings without roofs, nothing to make a lean-to with, etcetera. Then, out of pure chance, Ria spotted something down an alley.

There was an oversized wooden crate, probably from the piano manufacturing company that had been near here, open and laying on its side. It would have been a perfect place to crouch down in… if it weren't already occupied. Occupied by someone that Ria had hoped to never see again. Occupied by a little Irken named Zim. Ria glared in his direction, but he hadn't seen her yet; he was struggling to push GIR off his lap.

GIR finally tumbled off of his master and onto the side of the box, the impact of his body nearly tipping the box over. He noticed Ria before Zim did. "Hey lady!" he called, probably not recognizing Ria at first. Zim looked up. _He _remembered her. "So, Ria-human… thing! Have you decided to return and beg for ZIM to save you with his mighty power once again? Because it is too late now!" Ria's glare deepened and she started storming towards the box. As she got closer, Zim started to shrink back.

"Ah, no! Keep your slimy Earth water of pain away from me!"

"What?"

"Eh, I mean, go ahead Earth-monkey! Do your worst! Nothing threatens ZIM! NOTHING!"

_Slimy Earth-water of… pain?_ Ria stomped her foot in a puddle, splashing some water up onto Zim. He tried to dodge it, but ended up pretty wet anyway. For a second, nothing happened, but then there was a terrible sizzling noise as Zim's skin started to smoke. He cried out in pain and started writhing around on the ground. "Wow Zim," Ria said. "Such a _mighty_ species you come from. Taken down by a little water…" Ria chuckled a little. Zim struggled to sit up, and growled at Ria.

"How_ dare_ you, stupid human! After so many times Zim has stooped FAR below Irken standards and _helped_ you!" he said, spitting out the word 'helped' as if he were cursing. "Someday, you will feel the wrath of ZIM's mighty fist!" Ria clenched her fists, wishing he'd just shut the hell up already. Her foot rose off the ground, about to splash the puddle again, but then she stopped. Why did she hate him so much anyway? True, his leaders were destroying the planet, but what had _he_ done? He had tried to kill her, but he'd also helped her. Maybe it was just the fact that he didn't _care_. He didn't care about anything but himself.

Ria groaned and looked up into the clouds. The rain wasn't lightening up. In fact, if anything, it was getting worse. Was that lightning up there? "Alright, alright," Ria said, interrupting Zim, who was still ranting. "How about this. Scoot over and let me sit in there until the rain stops and I won't splash you again. Keep screaming at me and I _will. _Deal?"

Zim glared and stayed still for just a moment, but the reluctantly slid closer to GIR. Ria squeezed into the box, trying not to get Zim wet, but she must've; Zim grabbed GIR and switched places with him. GIR smiled up at Ria. "HI!" he said, jumping into her wet lap. "You're all wet!" he observed.

"Sure am."

* * *

It had been almost an hour now; an hour of this torture. At least Zim was fairly quiet, and GIR had fallen asleep. Ria stared out into the rain, looking for something, but she wasn't sure what. GIR snorted in his sleep, and Ria looked down at him. "I never knew robots could sleep," Ria said, sort of talking to herself and sort of talking to Zim.

"I guess it's his way of recharging. He is defective after all. Irkens don't need to waste time on _sleep, _so I don't quite understand it."

"So… you can't _sleep?"_

"It's possible, but our superior systems don't need it to live."

"Oh," Ria said, trying to drop the subject. Somehow though, her curiosity got the best of her. There was a question that she was dying to ask, although she didn't know why. "When you do sleep, do you dream?"

"Dream? No, not unless you're a defective. If you're defective, then dreaming is one of the early warning signs."

"Defective?"

"Yes. Defective."

Ria sighed. "Zim, I'm asking what defective _means." _

"Eh? Oh, defectives are the weak Irkens that feel deep emotions such as you humans have. Defectives must be _destroyed_ so that they do not hold back our plans for GALACTIC CONQUEST!"

Ria flinched as Zim shouted the last two words. "Could you please not yell anymore?"

"YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO HUMAN! ZIM COMMANDS _YOU_! YOU DON'T COMMAND _HIM_!"

Ria sighed. Maybe she could still spare herself the screaming. "So, if you feel emotion, you're defective?"

"Yes. Any emotion besides hate and loyalty is considered _weak _and _defective!" _

"Like what?"

"Like fear, sadness, or the worst of all…" Zim shuddered. "_Love." _

"Wow," Ria said. "Irkens are a lot… different. Humans… well; I guess you could say we sort of _need_ love."

It was true. Without love in the world… people would surely lose it. Sanity… out the window. Ria laid down on her back and stared at the top of the crate, which felt more cramped now that she'd decided to lie down. "You have loved before then?" Zim asked. Ria smiled. "Of course I've loved Zim. I loved my family, I loved my friends…" Devvon popped into Ria's mind, and she whispered, "I _thought_ I loved Devvon."

"Eh? What? Who?"

Apparently Irkens had good hearing, despite the fact that they had no ears. "It's nothing Zim. You wouldn't understand anyway."

"Fine, fine, Zim would enjoy if you kept your stinking human mouth of stink quiet for a while anyway!"

_Funny, _Ria thought, _considering that __**you're**__ the one who's been doing most of the talking lately!_ "But just know…" Zim began. Ria groaned. She knew where this was going. "…that Zim's mind is so full of geniusness that he can understand ANYTHING that a stupid human could!" Ria laughed. "Really?" she said.

"Of course!" Zim said, looking rather proud.

"That's nice, but I'm still not telling you."

"I don't care."

"Yes you do."

"LIAR!"

Ria grinned and closed her eyes. "I'm going to sleep," she said. She would probably have another nightmare, but the rain was making her even sleepier. This lack of sleep was starting to catch up to her. As Ria sank into a peaceful rest, she decided that the nightmares were worth a few more hours of sleep.

* * *

Ria was walking down the streets, looking at the ruins around her. It was a very sunny day, not even a cloud in the sky, and a light breeze was blowing. Ria figured that she was dreaming, but it wasn't a terrible nightmare like they had all been lately. Ria closed her eyes and tried to enjoy the breeze, but she had a weird feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Her eyes opened, and she looked around, just in time to spot a familiar face lurking around the rubble of a building. _Psycho? _Ria gasped and wildly looked around for somewhere to hide, but found nothing. Psycho had already seen her, and he was now coming close enough that she could get a good look at him… and the hole, right through the middle of his stomach.

"Hello," he said.

"Remember me?"

* * *

Ria's eyes opened and she sat up, breathing heavily. The rain had stopped, but it must have been only a few seconds ago. The clouds were still hanging over the city, and Zim and GIR were just creeping out of the box; Zim carefully weaved around the puddles. Ria's clothes and hair were still pretty wet, but when the sun came out again, she'd be able to dry off.

She crawled out the box and stood up, getting a good stretch in. That smell that you get after it rains hung in the air, and Ria breathed it in deeply. She'd always loved that smell. Zim must have heard her get up; his antennae twitched and he nodded in her direction. Strangely, he did not speak. Not that it was a bad thing.

Ria decided she should go look for Dib and Gaz; they might be worried by now. Ria stretched one more time and looked up at the sky. It was a good thing she did. Her eyes caught a glimpse of red behind the clouds. Ria blinked and rubbed her eyes, thinking for moment that it was only because she'd just woken up, but the red spot was still there; in fact it was actually moving through the sky.

Hadn't Dib said something about the Massive last night? Ria shuddered at the thought. What if he was right? Then Ria heard him.

"Ria!"

That was Dib's frantic voice for sure. This couldn't be good.

"Ria!"

Zim's antennae twitched again, and he ran forward out of the alley, looking around. Ria ran after him, hoping to somehow stop the two from seeing each other face-to-face, but it was too late. Dib was right there, running up the street, and he slid to a stop when he saw Zim and Ria standing there at the edge of the alley.

"Dib!" Zim said, stepping closer to Dib.

"Zim? Ria, get away from him! He's Irken!"

"I know, it's pretty obvious!" Ria said, gesturing toward Zim's antennae. She hoped she wouldn't have to explain that she'd known for quite a while that Zim was an alien.

"Get away from here Zim! Don't hurt anyone else! Haven't the Tallest done enough already?"

"No," Zim said, the metal piece on his back ejecting some kind of high-tech looking gun into his hand. "I think there is at least _one_ smelly human thing they missed!" Ria gasped and, without thinking, hit the gun out of Zim's hand. It fell to the ground and slid almost all the way to Dib's feet. Zim didn't turn toward Ria, but she knew who he was speaking to when he said, "You shouldn't have done that."

* * *

**CLIFFHANGER ALERT! HAHA! CAN U TELL SHIT'S 'BOUT TO GO DOWN?**

**DID THAT MAKE SENSE? **

**Ugh, I'm mad. Zim is not acting ZIMISH! Dib is not acting DIBISH! ARGGGHHH! *head explodes* **

***head reappears* ahem. Sorry about that. Anyway, please, PLEASE, PLEEEASSSE tell me what u thought about this. Why? Because it makes me happy! And there are some things in here that I think might not make sense. And I think it was short. *crickets chirp* …and all reviewers get hugs from GIR? *crowd of GIR fans cheer***

**Does Ria have a personality to you? I tried to make her seem like a teaser (I dont think thats a word) and a little sarcastic. Holds her ground. I hope she doesn't seem... personality-less. Am I rambling? Yes, yes I am. Bye!**

**REVIEW!**


	5. Chapter 5: The Massive

**VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: IN THIS CHAPTER, I MENTION SOMETHING CALLED AN ALTD. THAT MEANS ALIEN LANGUAGE TRANSLATING DEVICE. I KNOW PEOPLE HAVE PROBABLY COME UP WITH SIMILAR IDEAS BEFORE, SO JUST KNOW THAT I AM NOT TRYING TO COPY YOU IN ANY WAY. AND YES, I DID SORT OF CREATE MY OWN LAYOUT OF THE MASSIVE. THAT IS ALL.**

**Chapter five already? Yep, here it is. **

**Addisyn: Already? What's that supposed to mean? It's been forever!**

**Me: That's Addisyn. My friend. She's over at my house, watching me type this. Like a stalker.**

**Addisyn: Hey! **

**Me: Just sayin'. **

**And now, for the fourth time, GIR is giving out his REVIEWER HUGS!**

**The first reveiwer was, again, RoboticMasterMind!**

**GIR: HI AGAIN! *hugs***

**Second, Temyx Mew Mew Haerts!**

**GIR: *hugs***

**And third, CullenGirl14!**

**GIR: hehe *hugs***

**Oh, and CullenGirl14, about getting hugs from Zim…**

**Addisyn: Oh god…**

**Me: Well, that didn't go so well.**

**Addisyn: Where'd he run off to anyway?**

**Me: The garage, I think.**

**Addisyn: You mean where your dad keeps his POWER TOOLS and stuff?**

**Me:… Yes….**

**~Chainsaw noises~**

**Addisyn: Your dad has a **_**chainsaw?**_

**Me: I DON'T KNOW! I don't keep a list of my dad's… stuff! The things I do for my reviewers. *sigh* Looks like I've gotta go do something about this.**

**Addisyn: Ya think?**

**Disclaimer: In an alternate universe, it rains chocolate pudding, giant pigs and moose fly through the sky, and I own Invader Zim. Unfortunately, that is not the universe that we live in.**

**

* * *

**

_Ria_

Dib picked up the gun from the ground and studied it for a moment.

"Drop the gun, stupid human pig-smelly thing! You don't know what kind of AMAZING technology you're dealing with!"

Dib raised the gun and aimed it at Zim. "I'll figure it out," he said. Zim growled and his spider legs emerged from the metal thing on his back. "Alright _Dib_, last chance! Hand it over or I'll-"

A loud sound and bright light shot from the gun. Ria screamed and pulled GIR, who was nearby, closer to her as she huddled against a wall. Zim stumbled on his metal legs, one of which had detached from the joint down from the blast of the gun, and caught his balance by driving another through Dib's foot. Ria could hear the crunch of bone from where she stood, a few feet away, and shuddered as Dib screamed in pain.

"DIB!" Ria called, taking a step away from the wall. She had to do something. Zim lifted the metal leg out of Dib's foot, and Dib immediately fell backwards and clutched it. The gun clattered to the ground, and Ria dove for it before Zim even realized that Dib had let go of it.

"Ria!" Dib said, struggling to stand up despite the blood pouring from his foot. "The-The thing on his back! His PAK! Shoot it! He… needs it! Can't live… without…" Ria looked up at Zim and pointed the gun at him. She was in the perfect position to shoot him. She could have easily taken him out. But something was stopping her. Ria didn't really know what it was, but she didn't really _want _to kill him; at least not as much as she should have.

It should have been an easy choice. This alien, or Dib, a human being. But somehow, Ria's heart thought of it as a bad thing for either one of them to die. Ria felt torn. Torn between someone from her own planet, and the Irken who looked down upon them from atop his lethal metal PAK legs.

She had to do it though. It didn't make sense to just sit there like an idiot. It didn't make sense to not want to kill him! Just as Ria's shaking fingers started to pull the trigger, a metal leg flew by her vision, and the gun was forced from her hands. Ria was oddly relieved.

_You shouldn't be, _she told herself.

The gun went flying and hit the wall above GIR's head, then fell and landed right in his hands. He looked at it and then at the three people around him.

"GIR!" Dib said, now standing but looking very weak. "Give it to me!"

"NO!" Zim said. "Give it here GIR! Your master commands you!"

GIR, of course, was programmed to obey his master's orders before anyone else's. He saluted and then tossed the gun at Zim with a grunt. He must've thrown it pretty hard, because Zim couldn't get a grasp on it and it hit him in the face before tumbling to the ground once again. Ria was the first to reach it for the second time in a row, but Dib was so close behind that he grabbed the gun from her hands before she had a good grasp on it. He fired it without thinking, and almost hit Ria in the head.

Dib missed Zim by a long shot, shooting some splintered wood behind them. The strange Irken laser technology caught the wood on fire, only making things worse. Dib fired again, this time with better aim, and hit Zim on the side. He was so shocked by the blow that he didn't even cry out; just a small grunt of pain escaped his mouth before he lost his balance and fell to the ground in a heap.

Dib limped closer, aiming the gun again, but just because Zim had fallen didn't mean the PAK legs were useless. One of them swung out and sliced Dib's leg just above the knee, and a red stripe of blood almost immediately soaked through Dib's pants leg. As Dib fell to the ground, Zim struck again, this time at his arm. Ria growled and grabbed the gun, pointing it at Zim's head.

"STOP!" she said. "No more of this… fighting! You're going to kill each other!"

"That's what we're _trying_ to do!" Zim said, struggling to stand again. His own, green, blood had started to pour out of the wound that the gun had left. Dib, who had been moving a minute ago, was now lying motionless as the blood continued to flow steadily from his wounds. Ria ran over and knelt by his side. He was still breathing, and had a slow pulse, but there was no way to tell how much longer he'd last. Zim's spider legs had gone back into his PAK, but he had not succeeded in standing back up. Ria was pretty much on her own here. "Dib," she whispered. "Can you hear me?"

Dib's eyes came slightly open, and he whispered, "Before… I was trying to warn… the Massive is… up there." Ria gasped and her head snapped up to look at the sky. She didn't see anything, but that didn't mean it wasn't there. She looked back at Zim, who was still feebly trying to stand, and then to GIR, who was watching his master with a concerned look on his face. What was she supposed to do now? Ria should've done something sooner… stopped this before it began. Ria scooted back against the wall and curled up into a ball. She didn't want to give up… she couldn't give up.

Maybe she just needed a minute. Just a second to collect her thoughts. Maybe after that second she'd have some kind of epiphany and jump up and save the world. But not now. There was no telling how long Ria sat there, but it was just a moment before little GIR brought some sense back into her. "Why master, big-head and Ria not talking no more?" he asked, whimpering. Ria looked up at him and reached out to pat him on his metal head. He smiled a little. _Ok, I have to do something, _Ria thought. _If for nothing else, then at least for poor GIR. _

Ok, so Dib and Zim were both in desperate need of some form of medical care. That was the major problem, since Ria had no medical supplies and had no idea how to treat an Irken, or even a human who had lost as much blood as Dib had. She decided to use what was left of her jacket and what was left of Dib's… cloak… thingy to wrap something around the wounds. That wasn't enough though. Dib had three major wounds and Zim had one, which meant she needed at least four things.

She tried ripping the clothing, and did manage to tear off tiny pieces that were no use to her, but almost four days without food did not do wonders for a person's strength. Ria's stomach rumbled again at that thought, but the sight of Dib and Zim's blood kept her from feeling hunger. In fact, it started to make her queasy after a while. She needed to cover those wounds, and fast.

Ria looked Dib over and concluded that his leg was bleeding most, so she wrapped his cloak around it and tried to also cover his foot as much as she could. Dib didn't move during the process, but he was still lightly breathing.

_But for how long?_

Then Ria walked over and looked at Zim with a sigh. Ria shook her head. "I owe him this…" she told herself as she tried to figure out a way to wrap Zim's wound with her jacket. Zim groaned and tried to move a few times, which meant he was still slightly conscious, but his red eyes did not open. GIR looked over Ria's shoulder, curious as to what was happening to his master. "Watcha' doin'?" he asked. "Watcha' doin'? Why's master all quiet? Why you all quiet? Why big-head all quiet?"

"Well, master and…"

"BIG-HEAD!"

"Right, big-head. Well, they're… uh, sleeping," Ria said hesitantly as she finished wrapping Zim up.

"I KNOW HOW TO WAKE 'EM UP!" GIR said, starting to run around in circles and laugh wildly.

"Er, no GIR, stop that…" GIR didn't listen; instead he jumped up into the air and landed with a loud crash on top of the big wooden crate. It broke into several large-sized pieces. Ria sighed. "GIR, come here-"

"Well would you lookie there!" GIR giggled, pointing up at the sky. Ria froze. Did she dare look? Slowly, Ria's head turned upward. There it was. Dib was right. The Massive had returned, although Ria couldn't really think of a reason _why_. Were they not done with their destruction yet? Had they gone to other places and then returned? Ria probably wouldn't ever know.

She let out a little squeak and scooted back up against the wall, feeling vulnerable in the open. This was the first time Ria had gotten a good look at the ship without it blowing something up, and she noticed something about it that she hadn't before. On the front, there was a large black symbol of some kind, most likely an Irken sign. In fact, when Ria glanced down at the gun, she noticed that it sported the same symbol on its side.

Suddenly, Ria really _did_ have an epiphany. Sure, it was a long shot, and the Irkens seemed to want to destroy all humans… but at least there was a slight chance that they'd help. It was a one in a million chance, but better than nothing at all. Ria stood up and ran over to the wood that GIR had broken, and started breaking the largest pieces into slightly smaller ones so that they could be arranged into a shape. Then she started to lay them out.

This wasn't going to be easy, considering that she didn't have an aerial view, but she'd have to make do. Ria glanced up at the ship, which was moving slowly, but still, it was moving. She had to make it fast, too. Ria copied the symbol off the gun and the front of the Massive as best she could, but she still wasn't sure if it would look right from the sky. What if it just looked like a blob?

Ria looked around for something to stand on, something to climb up, _anything_ that would give her a look from higher up, but found nothing. "I need to see it from… above…" Ria mumbled to herself, glancing up to see that the Massive was still steadily moving through the sky. "Come on! Come on!" she said, taking another look around. "I need to get up higher… higher…"

"HIGHER!" GIR screamed. Ria hadn't realized he was listening to her talk to herself. She also hadn't realized that the robot was capable of flying up into the sky, swooping down, and lifting her up with him. At first, Ria screamed and struggled, positive that she was about to be dropped. Then she calmed down and took a quick look at her creation before GIR started moving again. It looked decent; at least you could tell what it was supposed to be.

GIR was flying again now, plummeting toward the ground. Just when Ria started to worry he was just going to shoot straight through the ground, he pulled up a little and landed clumsily, dropping Ria immediately. "Ta-dah!" he said. Ria stood up, though her legs were shaking a little, and nodded. "Yeah… good job GIR." GIR giggled in reply.

Now there was only one thing left to do. Good thing that it was the easiest step; the Massive would soon pass over the spot and wouldn't see Ria's little beacon. Ria picked up the gun and aimed at the wood. She pulled the trigger and… nothing. What? Ria looked up at the ship. Had it sped up, or was she just taking _that_ long? Ria shook the gun and tried again. Still nothing. Ugh, this wasn't fair!

"_Life's not fair."_

Ria growled. "Come on! Hurry up you little piece of shit!" Ria threw the gun onto the wood, and it started firing rapidly. Ria screamed and stumbled backwards, a shot nearly grazing the top of her head as she fell. Luckily, the firing stopped quickly after that, and the wood was finally set ablaze. Ria smiled triumphantly and looked up at the Irken ship, which was still steadily moving through the sky. Oh yeah, they still had to notice it. "Please, please, please, please…" she whispered to herself, pulling GIR close to her again. The Massive didn't seem to be stopping.

"OH I KNEW IT!" Ria screamed, pushing a now whimpering GIR away from her. "IT'S TOO SMALL!" She stormed over to the beacon and stared down at it. Ria felt like she was going to cry. Her vision blurred and her shoulders shook, but the tears didn't come. The Massive had almost completely passed over the alley now. "Why don't you just go ahead and destroy us?" Ria called up to it. "Look at us! We're all going to die soon anyway!" Of course, since the Massive was an inanimate object that was up in the sky, Ria got no answer.

"It's not like they would have helped anyway," Ria told herself. It didn't help that terrible feeling of failure that sat like a rock in her chest. Ria glanced back up at the Massive. It didn't seem to have moved from the last time she looked up at it… strange. Ria turned her attention back to GIR, who was softly crying ever since she'd pushed him away. Ria sat down next to him and tried to muster a smile. It probably didn't come out looking like one though; GIR didn't smile back. "Hey little buddy… I'm sorry. I hope that didn't hurt." GIR sniffed, but crawled into Ria's lap and seemed content after that. Ria's mind seemed mostly blank at the moment, but a random thought did pop up.

_Robots could cry? _

Ria glanced back up at the sky, sure that the Massive would be gone, but it still hovered there in the sky. Odd… Ria immediately perked up and stared at the Massive intently, as if she could will it to do something. Ria pulled GIR up onto her shoulders and stood up, squinting into the now clearing sky.

The Massive was definitely not moving; Ria could see the clouds blowing but the great Irken ship stood still. A slight breeze blew smoke from the fire into Ria's face and she started to cough, but she never took her eyes off the Massive. That was the only thing that mattered at the moment. As Ria continued to stare at the ship, it seemed to be dropping slightly lower. Could it be that they'd seen her little beacon, her pitiful cry for help? Ria sucked in a deep breath of excitement, which caused her to break into another coughing fit. That smoke was starting to get to her.

The Massive was too large to get very low to the ground, but it inched close enough that the odd rumbling sound it made was deafening. The smoke really started to whirl around, and Ria's coughing grew worse. In fact, her eyes were starting to tear up, and she nearly dropped GIR off her back in her mad coughing attack. Ria took in a big gasp and slowly released it, hoping it would stop the violent coughs, but they only grew worse after the exhale.

Eventually, Ria started to feel a little lightheaded, and fell backwards. GIR screamed and fell to one side just before Ria hit the ground. It was a good thing he was so quick; Ria could have broken him. That wasn't her main concern at the moment though. Why couldn't she stop coughing? In the corner of her blurry vision, Ria thought that she saw several green and red shapes moving around.

Then she felt something grab her arm and try to hoist her to her feet. And GIR… he was screaming frantically. Ria squeezed her eyes shut, unable to call back to him. His terrified screech echoed in her mind for what seemed like forever, before finally fading to silence.

* * *

Ria's eyes came open in a snap for what must have been the thousandth time. This time, though, the scene that greeted them was much different. Three almost identical Irkens were staring at her with red eyes, not looking murderous… but they didn't exactly look friendly either.

Ria gasped, which caused her to cough again, but only for a second. She was in some kind of hallway, by the looks of it, leaned up against the wall and sitting on a linoleum and hospital-clean floor. The Irkens looked at each other and spoke in Irken. "W-What's going on?" Ria asked, craning her neck to look around the three. "Where's GIR? Where's Dib?" The Irkens barely even took notice that she was awake.

They didn't speak her language, but Ria could tell that they were talking about her. They kept looking in her direction, and she could feel curiosity emitting from all three of them. "Where's Zim?" The Irkens perked up at the name Zim, and one of them spoke.

"Is my ALTD working? Hello?" Ria raised an eyebrow curiously. The Irken leaned extremely close. "CAN YOU UNDERSTAND ME?" Ria flinched and huddled closer to the wall.

"Yes, I understand you! Yelling's not going to help!"

"Alright, now, explain yourself. What were two humans doing in a small… group of some sort with and Irken and his SIR? Well, if you want to call that thing a SIR unit anyway."

"Well, it's sort of a long, complicated story but-"

"And what were you doing using the Irken symbol as some kind of cry for help? Did you think it would get our attention?"

"Well… actually…" interrupted another Irken. "… it _did_ get our attention."

The third Irken snickered.

"Look," said Ria. "I asked some questions a minute ago. I expect some answers!"

"The three that were with you are still outside, although they and the other guards should be beamed up shortly. They're in pretty bad shape you know."

Ria jumped to her feet. "OF COURSE I KNOW! DO YOU THINK I COULD'VE SURVIVED DOWN THERE IF I WERE SOME KIND OF IDIOT THAT WOULDN'T _KNOW_?" The three Irkens looked at each other and took a careful step back.

"We didn't mean to imply-" said the one who had done most of the talking.

"Of course you didn't mean to imply anything, now that I'm pissed at you!" Ria growled, taking a step closer. Another nearly identical Irken grabbed Ria's arms from behind and pulled her away from the first three. They tried to act as if Ria's ferocious act had not shaken them, but Ria could clearly feel the relief flush through their brains.

"Get off me!" Ria grunted, weakly trying to pull away from the Irken behind her. Finally, Ria just sighed and said, "Ok, ok, I'm gonna try not to blow up at you guys again. Just… help the others, ok? Don't just let them bleed to death." The Irkens looked at each other. "We'll see what we can do," one said.

"SEE WHAT-" Ria cut herself off. Yelling hadn't gotten her very far before (although she did like it that those Irkens were afraid of her). _"Please,"_ she said with a sigh.

"Like I said, we'll see what we can do about _them._ Meanwhile, we'll see what the Tallests want to do with _you_." The Tallest… it rang a bell, but Ria couldn't remember where she'd heard it. _I probably heard Zim say something about it during one of his rants, _she thought. The guard who had grabbed Ria from behind yanked on her arms and started to lead her down the hall. Ria sighed but allowed herself to be roughly guided through several different hallways until they came to a large purplish door, where they were joined by two other guards.

Ria didn't really see why the extra precaution was necessary; the Irkens were supposed to be such a superior species, and Ria was hungry and exhausted. One of the guards knocked lightly on the door. "What now?" called an annoyed voice from behind the door. "Maybe it's the donut guy!" said another, higher pitched one. The owner of the first voice sighed, and the door swung open to reveal two tall Irken beings.

The one who had opened the door had red eyes and wore a robe of the same color. The other was purple-eyed, and wore a robe similar to the others, but his was purple. They looked curiously down at the guards, and upon noticing Ria, a look of shock crossed their faces. "What?" said the red Tallest. "Is _this_ why we stopped the ship? For a_ human!"_ The purple Tallest pushed his way into the doorway. "I thought it was because you saw the Irken symbol!"

"They _did,_" Ria said coldly. The Tallests stared at her as if they thought she was incapable of speech.

"But…" The purple one said.

"My Tallest," said one of the guards. "She must have learned a bit about the Irkens. You see…" the speaker shuddered. "…_Zim _was with her."

"Zim?" said the red Tallest.

"Didn't we incinerate him?" the purple one asked.

"No," Ria said. "You just _thought_ you did. In fact, I bet you _thought_ you incinerated everybody in my whole town. But you didn't. You left _me_, and a few other survivors clinging to life. We lost _everything_ because of you!"

Ria struggled and managed to pull away from the guard's grasp for a second, but she didn't really get very far and was soon pulled back again. "Take her away," the red Tallest said. "Get rid of her somehow. Throw her out the airlock for all I care." The guards yanked Ria's arms back again, but she wasn't going without a fight.

She struggled to stop them from taking her, pulling against them. "WAIT!" she said. "NO! I'M NOT A NORMAL HUMAN!" Ria tried to put herself into the red Tallest's mind, and easily found what he was feeling. "I know you feel… like I'm worthless. Like all humans are worthless. But you also feel… the slightest bit threatened."

"What? Ridiculous!" said the red Tallest, although Ria felt a bit of confusion and embarrassment as he spoke.

"You do! And it's because…" Ria closed her eyes, trying to force herself deeper inside the Irken's mind. The emotions that he felt started to get stronger, and she got a tiny glimpse of a memory. "It's because Zim once told you that humans can grow tall. As tall as you. And you've secretly worried about it since."

"Stop," the Tallest commanded his guards, who were still trying to pull Ria away. She fell to her knees, exhausted from the struggle.

"How… how do you…"

"I told you. I'm not like the other humans. I can read your mind."

"How does it work?"

"I don't know. I just can… like right now, you're not sure if you believe me, but you're really curious."

"That could just be a lucky guess. What about Purple? What's he thinking?"

Ria closed her eyes, but she didn't even need to. Purple's mind was like an open book, although when she found what he was thinking about, she wasn't sure if she was right. "Nachos? Really?"

"What? Nachos can be very distracting!"

Ria's stomach growled. Yes. Yes, nachos could be _very_ distracting indeed.

"You do seem to have some kind of gift…" the red Tallest said. "…but why were you signaling us? What do you want?"

"I was desperate! I needed help! All I want is for you not to let them die!"

Ria was suddenly on the verge of hysteria; although it was a miracle she'd even held it back this long.

"Who?" Purple asked.

"Well, see, Dib is hurt pretty badly. And… I-er, I mean… and Zim…"

"ZIM? HUMANS? HELP?" Red cried.

"Please!" Ria said. "I'll… I'll… I'll be a servant, or whatever you want! Just let us live!"

"Servant, huh?" Ria nodded, mentally begging the Tallests to even consider it.

"We could always use more of those," Purple noted. "They're fun to boss around!" Ria rolled her eyes. Hadn't she lived through enough? "Alright, I guess we could keep you as servants, but remember; it's likely to be only _temporary!_ We'll probably come up with all kinds of fun ways to torture you!"

Ria was so tempted to yell at the top of her lungs that they'd already tortured them enough, but she held her tongue. She'd just barely been able to save herself from being thrown out an airlock, so she'd better not take her chances. "Tell the others to do whatever medical… things that the survivors need!" Purple said to his guards, who saluted.

"And take her with them to the medical ward, for an inspection," Red added. "We don't want an infected human coming in contact with _our_ snacks!" So with that, Ria was once again roughly led through the Massive.

* * *

Ria tried not to look crazed as she watched each individual chip go into the fat Irken's mouth, but it was impossible. The hunger was becoming more unbearable with each crunch. The rather chubby female Irken in the room was apparently supposed to be watching her so that she didn't escape, but Ria figured they must've done it to further torture her.

She'd passed the inspection, coming through with a clean bill of health, and she was now sitting in a small room to wait for Dib. She'd been there for almost six hours now; it felt like forever. She didn't know what was going to be done to them when he came out, but she hoped it had something to do with food. Specifically, her eating some.

"Hey, uh…" Ria said. The fat Irken looked up. "M-Mind if I have a couple of those?" There was a long silence, but then the Irken held the bag out. Ria reached over and grabbed a handful, stuffing her mouth until she couldn't hold anymore. The Irken pulled the bag away as Ria started to reach for it again.

"You said _a couple_," she grunted.

Ria swallowed. "Thanks. I'm Ria by the way."

"Mie."

The room fell silent again, other than Mie crunching her chips, and the occasional rumbling of Ria's stomach. Eating something had just sharpened the hunger, not really satisfied it. Then, footsteps started coming close to the door. It burst open, and Dib darted into the room. He stumbled and fell, curling up in a ball against the wall. "Dib?" Ria said, stepping closer to him.

"Careful…" said an Irken who stepped in behind him. "He's a little… unstable at the moment." Ria took one step closer, and Dib's eyes darted from her face to the two Irkens in the room. He shuddered.

"Dib?" Ria repeated.

"Aliens…" he said. "…everywhere…"

Ria took another step closer, and gasped when she could see him better. He'd come in so fast that she never really got a good look at his left side. His arm and leg weren't… human. They were metal, and looked more like something out of a sci-fi movie than body parts. Even the prosthetic limbs back on Earth couldn't compare to them. These were completely robotic.

Ria turned toward the Irken who had followed Dib into the room. "W-What did you _do_ to him?"

"His limbs were badly mangled. We don't know anything about human medical care. He's lucky we were even able to safely complete the surgery to replace the limbs."

Ria swallowed and turned back to Dib, trying not to make it obvious that these robotic parts kind of… scared her. It was quite obvious from the way Dib looked that they didn't know anything about humans. He was pale and looked very weak, and being terrified was not helping his condition.

"Dib, it's ok…" she said. Her words did not appear to have any affect.

"But-But the aliens…" Ria knelt down so that she was eye-level with Dib.

"The aliens are all helping us. Understand?"

Dib looked around the room again. He never answered, but he seemed to slowly calm down. "W-What happened?" he asked.

"We're on the Massive. I signaled it. We're going to have to stay here a while."

"The Massive?" Dib squeaked, huddling closer to the wall.

Ria nodded. "But it's ok Dib. They're not going to hurt you or experiment on you or any of that stuff…"

"But what about Gaz?" Ria gasped. She hadn't even thought about the intimidating, purple-haired girl before she left. So she'd just gone without her.

"I-I, uh… Dib, I'm sorry. I mean… if I had been thinking clearly, I never would have… I mean…" Tears stung Ria's eyes. She couldn't do anything right. The room fell totally silent for a few beats, before Mie stood up. "I'm supposed to show you two your quarters and working area. Come on." Ria stood up and reached her hand out to Dib, who took it with his human hand. When he stood, he wobbled on his robotic leg for a moment before righting himself.

"Really," Ria said. "I… I can't even _explain_ how sorry I am." Dib shook his head.

"I understand… Gaz… she can take care of herself. I shouldn't even worry."

"But you are."

"Maybe." Dib looked at the ground.

"Are you two coming, or what?" Mie growled, clearly irritated. Ria nodded and started walking; Dib followed reluctantly behind. Mie led them down the hall, talking as they went. "You two are assigned to the kitchen, which has lots of employees, so your schedule is one of the least busy. You'll work for ten hours a day."Ria scoffed, and Mie shot her a glare before continuing.

"You'll have a thirty minute breakfast, work for five hours, and then get a few moments for a small foodening. Then you'll continue to work for five more hours. After you've completed your necessary ten hours per day, you'll have all the hours until your next shift to rest, but you will not have the freedom to roam the ship. Certain areas are open to servants, including a large dining hall where dinner will be severed. You are not required to show up for dinner, but it is highly recommended." Ria snorted.

"You find this funny?"

"No, no, please go on."

Ria looked at Dib, expecting him to be opposed to being a slave to these aliens, but he was strangely silent. "Dib?" she whispered. He looked at Ria with a blank expression. "You ok?" she asked him.

"Fine."

"Are you two listening?" Mie hissed.

"Sure, sure," Ria said. "Just… ah… can you repeat… a bit of that?"

"A bit of what?"

"You know… the thing… the one that you said."

Mie sighed. "I was _trying_ to tell you about your quarters. You'll each have a small room in a hallway with other hideous non-Irken species."

"Does it have anything in it? Any food?"

Mie sighed again. "I was _getting_ to that," she said. "Is your species capable of patience?" Then, without giving Ria time to reply, Mie continued. "There will be a bed, a small sofa, and a refrigerator. Don't ask me if it'll have anything in there, though. You'll also have a small bathroom, with your basic toilet and cleansing unit. Any questions?" Ria shook her head. "Good," said Mie. "I'm not one for answering questions."

"Really?" Ria said. "I never would've guessed." Mie just nodded, so sarcasm was apparently lost on her. Mie continued walking, but stopped for just a second in front of a red door with Irken writing on the front. "That's the kitchen. Remember where it is." Then she continued on her way. Ria followed, giving Dib another worried look.

He still hadn't really talked, and that wasn't like Dib. Ria had barely known him and she knew _that. _Even if no one would listen to him, he seemed to even talk to _himself_, but not now. A few awkwardly silent minutes later, Mie led Ria and Dib into a long corridor, with more red doors sporting more of the Irken writing. She reached into her pocket and tossed Ria a little card, similar to what hotel keys looked like back on Earth, except instead of a friendly picture on one side, there was just more of the Irken writing.

Mie pointed at a door, not even bothering to speak. Ria looked at Dib again, and decided to try again to get him to act normal. "So, uh, guess I'll see you later?" Dib didn't answer for a moment, so Ria thought he hadn't heard, but then he slowly nodded. Ria stared at him for one more minute before walking over to the door and sliding her card. As she swung the door open, she thought, _Take a good look around. This could possibly be the last room I ever get to stay in._

As soon as she entered the room, she felt cramped. It was tiny. It had a small, old-looking sofa on one side, with an equally old looking refrigerator next to it, and a door on the other side. The bed was pushed against the wall ahead of her. There wasn't much walking space either. Still, it was better than the type of servant's quarters that she'd pictured. Better than nothing. Better than what was left for her on Earth.

There was a large window next to the bed, where Ria could look out. All she saw at the moment was clouds, but it was obvious that the ship was moving. She walked over to the window, curious as to whether looking down would help her see anything else.

Ria did see the ground below, but it looked so far away… even though it was coming closer. Strangely, it the land below didn't look destroyed and barren like Ria remembered. In fact, she could see tiny little dots that could have been houses, or cars…

Ria froze up, her blood suddenly running cold. She had realized what was happening, but the question was: What could she _do?_

_

* * *

_

**Hey! Yay for me! That was my longest chapter ever! Unfortunately… I don't like it! Don't even get me started; I'll just type a book on what I don't like about it! *pouts* Oh, and CullenGirl14…**

**Addisyn: *dragging Zim into room* Someone… wants… to… hug… you!**

**Zim: No! NOO! Zim will not hug the human girl! NEEEVERRR!**

**Addisyn: A little help here?**

**Me: Right! Well, if anyone needs us, we'll be here… trying to get Zim to hug my reviewers. Wish us luck. Don't worry CullenGirl14, we're working on it!**

**~EXPLOSION~**

**Me: What was that? Wait, Zim, NO!**

**~static~**


	6. Chapter 6: The Control Brain

****

Wow, it's been a long time since I updated this! Sorry for the wait, I've just been very busy with school and stuff. I promise I will try to update faster! SEMI-IMPORTANT NOTE: bear with me on the parts about the control brains. I don't know crap about them.

**Me: First hug is for RoboticMasterMind.**

**GIR: *hugs***

**Me: The second goes to Temyx Mew Mew Haerts.**

**GIR: *hugs***

**Me: Oh, and CullenGirl14, Zim is gonna give you that hug. Trust me. Ahem. ADDISYN!**

**Addisyn: *presses a large button***

**A spotlight falls on Zim, who is chained to a wall and gagged.**

**Me: Now, crank up the Justin Bieber music. He'll crack sooner or later!**

**Addisyn: *inserts earplugs and salutes***

**DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN INVADER ZIM.**

**

* * *

**

_Ria_

Ria pressed her face up against the cold window, looking down at the tiny dots below. There were people down there. Wherever the Massive was, it was probably pretty far away from Ria's home. They would've sent someone over, rescuers or something, if it were closer. Or… maybe not? How long had it been? What if people in some places didn't even _know _yet? Ria stepped away from the window. She had to do something. _Anything. _

She turned around and ran for the door, threw it open, and stumbled into the hall. Just as she was about to bolt down the hall, the floor beneath her shook. Ria almost fell, but she caught her balance on the wall. Was she too late? No. No, she couldn't let this happen. Not with her on board! She ran back into her room and took another look out the window, but the scene had changed. They were obviously much lower to the ground, and Ria could see orange fire and smoke coming up off the ground in huge dark clouds.

"No," she breathed. She stumbled back from the window and caught her balance on the couch; her knees were suddenly very weak. "No." There were people down there. People like her family. People like her friends. People like Ria. Ria squeezed her eyes shut and clutched her hands to the sides of her head, which was suddenly pounding. And it felt like she was falling…

* * *

Ria nearly screamed as she was suddenly jolted out of those horrible memories. Her heart was still pounding as if she had really been there. She was sitting on the same couch that she could remember herself leaning on… it felt so real. Ria shuddered. She hated those little jumps. It was like reliving her horrible past and not being able to change anything. Even in nightmares she could change things somewhat. In the jumps, she couldn't control it. _It's ok_… she told herself. But she'd never had one that long before! _It's over now… _Ria took a deep breath and tried to think about something else.

What had she been doing right before the jump? She could remember Dib coming by. And he told her something about the Tallest, didn't he? Oh yeah, the Tallests wanted to talk to her tonight! She'd probably been there a while… if only Ria knew how long!

She glanced up at the Irken clock above the refrigerator, which she had tried to teach herself to read, but she couldn't remember what it had said before the jump. It could be any time now that they wanted to see her, so Ria jumped up and went to the bathroom, looking at herself in the mirror. They had been given clothes that looked exactly like the clothes that all servants wore, so basically, it was a uniform.

It consisted of a black jacket, grayish-purple shirt, black pants, and black shoes that were uncomfortable. Ria wore them only when necessary. She was told that they would form to her feet over time, but she hadn't felt any change yet. Everyone only got two sets of clothing, and they all had to take turns with the clothes washing unit, so that meant often wearing the same clothes a few days in a row. Good thing Ria's were fresh today.

She reached up and ran her fingers through her hair. It was starting to feel a little dirty, and she looked a mess. She defiantly needed a shower, or as the Irkens called it, "a cleansing." The first time Ria had taken a shower, she had been afraid that the Irken liquid would hurt her. Water burned Zim's skin like acid, so it would make sense that Irken substances would have the same effect on her.

Fortunately, the electric blue, jelly-like substance didn't hurt her at all. In fact, it felt nice. Especially when it was nice and warm. As soon as it touched your skin, your hand for example, it spread itself out up your arm in an even layer. Then, once you were clean, it just dripped right off. It didn't feel anything like water. It was much gentler, and when it spread itself out, it was almost like a mini massage on your skin.

That wasn't what Ria should be focusing on now, though. She had to get ready quick. Ria took a quick shower, got dressed again, and fixed her hair. When she felt that she looked decent, she went back into the room and took a look at the clock. She couldn't read it that well, but she had memorized what position the clock was in when it was about time for dinner, time to go to work, etcetera. According to her memory, it was pretty close to dinner time.

Ria was starting to get nervous. What would the Tallests want to talk to _her_ about? _The idiots better not be changing their minds about keeping us alive…_ she thought, and kicked the leg of her couch as she considered it. She wouldn't go without a fight. No matter what they did to her, she'd put up a good fight, if that was the least she could do. These thoughts were not exactly putting Ria in a cheerful mood.

She sat down on the couch and waited. If no one came for her, she'd leave at dinner time. Just as Ria leaned back on the couch and was starting to get comfortable, she heard a knock on the door. "Human servant! The Tallests request that you pay them a visit!" said a deep voice. "Oh, well if the Tallests _request _it..." Ria grumbled. She slowly stood up and slipped into her uncomfortable shoes –stupid fucking shoes- and went over to the door. When she opened it, there were two of those guards standing there. Stupid fucking guards.

"Alright," she huffed. "Take me to the Tallest…" The guards nodded to each other and started leading Ria down the hall. The shoes rubbed her more each step, it seemed. Ow. Ow. Ow. Or maybe she just concentrated on it more, since with each step closer she grew more nervous and looked for something to distract herself. Either way, Ria was really starting to loathe those shoes.

When they turned the next corner, Ria was surprised to see the Tallests in the middle of the hall waiting for them. The guards leading her didn't seem to be expecting it either. Their quick and quiet Irken conversation quickly silenced and they stood up straighter. "My Tallest," one of them said. They both saluted. The Red Tallest gave them a dismissive wave, though his eyes were glued to Ria. Ria's senses perked up, and she trespassed into his thoughts for a moment. He was definitely thinking about her. What did he want?

The guards stepped back, but Ria noticed that they did not leave. Maybe the Tallests weren't so dumb. Now that Ria wasn't so weak… well, that was off topic. "So um…" she said.

"Ria…" Red said. "You are able to read Irken thoughts, yes?" Ria slowly nodded. What was he getting at? She was tempted to leaf through his open book of a mind, but stopped herself since this conversation appeared to be about her gift. "Did you know that PAKs act as brains for Irkens?"

Really? Ria glanced at the round devices on the Tallests' backs, and then turned around to look at the ones on the guards. "They do? Interesting…" Now it was a major fight against temptation. She needed to know what he wanted. Get to the point already!

"What about robots? Computers? Can you read them?"

Ria shrugged. "I've never tried." She had been around GIR a lot, but she'd never tried to read his thoughts before. Even if she did, there probably wouldn't have been much there anyway. And a regular computer… well the thought had never even crossed her mind! "Why?"

Red looked at Purple, who smiled. Then he looked back down at Ria. "Come with us," he said. Great. More walking. In these shoes. The Tallests led Ria further down the hall. The guards seemed unsure if they were supposed to follow, so they reluctantly fell into step behind Ria. Luckily for Ria's feet, the walk wasn't far at all. Just a few doors down until they came to a dead end, where there was a big and tall double door. Red and Purple entered silently and Ria followed behind in a floating, ghost-like manner.

The guards stopped outside the door. Ria hadn't been sure what to expect, but she was definitely not expecting what she saw. It was huge. It was sort of glowing. It was… what was it? It was a giant, red, oval shaped thing. It was on the other side of the room, but the Tallests didn't seem to be making any move toward it. "Uh, what is that?" Ria asked. "And… can I get a closer look?"

Red chuckled. "First of all, no. You aren't allowed to get that close to a control brain."

"…A what?"

"A control brain. The ultimate Irken knowledge center. It is because of control brains that we _exist._ They program us, they fill us with Irken knowledge!"

"So why are you showing it to _me?"_

"We'd like to see just how powerful this… gift of yours is. We need to evaluate your capabilities. We want you to try and read it."

"Yeah!" Purple added. "Do it!"

"R-Read…? What? No, I… I can't!"

"Are you sure about that?" Red asked.

No. Ria wasn't _sure,_ but she didn't really want to try. This… control brain thing kind of scared her. "I don't know about this," she muttered, but she closed her eyes anyway. She didn't want to annoy the Tallests, because she was dangling between staying aboard the Massive (with food and a place to sleep) or being thrown out an airlock.

She channeled her thoughts… focused… nothing yet. She kept trying. If she kept searching, maybe she'd find something. Then it suddenly came. Unlike in human minds, where the thoughts breezed in gently and one at a time, this was a sudden blast of information. The shock of it caused Ria to jump and broke her concentration, but the knowledge continued to eagerly pour in. Lights and images, some appearing to be memories, flashed in front of her eyes. A million jumbled voices echoed in her head.

"Make it stop…" Ria said, squeezing her eyes shut tighter and clasping her hands over her ears. It didn't help, and this spew of information wasn't letting up. "Make it STOP!" Someone touched her arm, but Ria swatted at it and fell backwards. She opened her eyes, but then couldn't tell what was real and what was coming from the control brain. Ria had to get out of there. She scooted backwards until her back hit the door, and then turned around and shoved it open. As she threw herself into the hall, the flow of information slowed to a trickle. The voices quieted.

Ria, quivering, tried to stand up. She was quite shaken, and occasional images still contorted her vision, so she stumbled and had to catch herself on the wall. The Tallests came out and looked down at her curiously. She shrank away. Those memories… those voices… all that information. Ria had probably just heard Irken secrets that the Tallests themselves didn't even know, and it was now stored away somewhere deep in her mind. If only she knew how to find it again.

"What did you see?" Purple asked.

"S-So much…" Ria mumbled. A bloody memory, probably from an Invader, flashed in front of her eyes. Ria let out a little squeak and closed them. "Why do I see memories?"

"The control brains have disabled many Irkens, meaning they suck all the information out of their PAKs. You can really see all that?" Red said. Ria nodded and shivered again. "Interesting."

"W-Why would you tell me to do that?" Ria asked. "It… it was horrible!" There were tears brimming Ria's eyes. She rubbed them away.

"All for the benefit of the Irken Empire! You could be very useful to us." Red said.

Useful? What?

Purple looked down at her and smiled. "Now run along to dinner, little slave." What, so that's it? Run along to dinner! Ria gave Purple a nasty glare before starting down the hall again. "Idiot," she hissed. Ria wasn't going to be useful to them. She was never going to help them. _Never._

* * *

The next day, Ria was up bright and early to work in the kitchen. It was terrible. Sending out snack after snack, hour after hour, just watching those service drones carry them out to whoever… Ria's eyes were glued to the clock most of the day, although she couldn't really read it.

Ria had started to become familiar with the routine, and she knew that it always included guards having to be summoned to get this one little alien to work. He seemed pretty young and child-like, and was always very scared. He hid in the corner until the guards threatened him enough to convince him that he should work. The poor little thing was pretty cute too. His skin was a reddish color, and he had big green eyes, and a little tail. His permanently frightened look only added to the cuteness factor.

Ria felt sorry for him and wanted to make him feel better, but she obviously didn't speak the same language as he did. He never seemed to talk anyway. Ria dumped another batch of… whatever those slimy things were into the fryer and looked up at the red alien. He was whimpering over by the grill, where his meaty thing was starting to burn. "Hey," she said, motioning to the meat. He looked at it and shrank back, as if he was afraid of it.

Ria shook her head. There was something going on in that thing's mind that Ria could probably never understand. The only thing in his thoughts that she understood was his fear. She sighed and looked across the room at Dib, who was dumping some kind of greasy snack onto a plate. Then she looked at the door, where two batches of donuts were going out. Probably for the Tallests. Those two idiots who convinced her to read a control brain. Ugh.

Then Ria glanced up at the clock. At first glance, it just looked confusing like it normally did, with one hand sort of curvy, the other having two arrow points, and the numbers unreadable. Then, something clicked. The clock made sense! The twisty hand, that one was the equivalent of an hour hand on an Earth clock, and that other one… Ria racked her brain, but somehow, she'd lost it. The clock was suddenly confusing again.

"Well that was weird…" she whispered. She started staring intently at the clock, hoping that if she did, maybe the same thing would happen. It didn't. "Uh, hey Ria?" Dib said from his spot at the other set of fryers.

"Hm?"

"The uh… the food."

Ria gasped and turned around, only to find that she'd left her food in the boiling oil way to long. It was burnt to a crisp. "Ah shit…" she said. Looks like she'd have to throw these down the garbage chute. And if she didn't hurry with the next batch, some big ugly Irken would come marching in and demand that she "hurry up with that order", and all that. Ria just grumbled curses to herself and tried not to get mad.

If she had some music, she would've been able to calm down easier. Ria missed music. She started humming a tune to herself. She knew she had heard it before, maybe on the radio. Well, whatever it was, it was in her head now, so she'd probably be humming it forever. This time, Ria was careful to watch her food. Well, at least until she noticed that little red-guy was staring at her, wide eyed, but… not in fear. Just surprise.

"What?" she said. Red-guy turned away. Ria shrugged and went back to her humming and cooking. Red-guy looked at her again. _"What?"_ she said. If he weren't so cute, Ria would have been _really_ creeped out already.

"F-Fa-Faleem?" he said, pointing to her.

Ria looked around, not sure what to say. "I don't… I mean, I don't… understand," she said, while making some kind of retarded hand motion that didn't help at all.

"Faleem?" he repeated, pointing at her again. Was he asking her name? Ria opened her mouth and tried to think of a reply, but only a whoosh of air came out. "Uh…"

Red-guy sighed and seemed almost annoyed. He looked around, probably checking if any of the guards were watching. Then he suddenly grabbed Ria's hands. She gasped as a weird kind of energy settled over her. Then she saw things.

There was a pretty little house, with a yard in the front that was full of purple grass. Another being that looked like red-guy stood at the door, but she was obviously female, and much older. She smiled and reached out her hands. Red-guy (who Ria really needed a name for) ran up to her and grabbed them, and they both closed their eyes, probably communicating in the same way as he and Ria were now. When they released each other, the female started singing in a strange alien language. The tune was a little bit similar to the one Ria had been humming. The female hugged red-guy, who Ria guessed must be her son, and led him into the house.

The image faded, and red-guy dropped his hands. "Faleem!" he said proudly. Then he pointed at Ria once more. "Faleem?"

He was obviously asking about his mother, since Ria had been humming a familiar tune. Ria wished she could tell him that she knew where his "Faleem" was, but she didn't. "No," she said, and shook her head for emphasis. Little red-guy sighed and looked at the ground sadly. Ria just stared at red-guy for a long time, feeling half sorry and half just plain amazed. On her planet, mind reading was something out of fairy-tales (well, for everyone but Ria). On his planet, it was a regular way of communicating.

Suddenly Dib ran over beside her and yanked her food out of the fryer. "Ria!" he said.

"Oh, right!" She took the food from him and grabbed a plate for it. "Thanks," she said.

"No problem… but just save your little relationships for when you're_ not_ cooking something in boiling oil." Dib peeked over at red-guy. "And uh, I guess I wouldn't be able to tell how old he is, but doesn't he seem a little young for you?"

"Oh, hah hah," Ria said flatly, and then atttempted to hit him with her plate of food. "Aren't you just hilarious today?" Dib just shook his head and walked off. Then Ria looked back at red-guy. "Ria," she said, pointing to herself. Hopefully he understood. "Mletch!" he replied, heartily jabbing a finger at his chest. Ria nodded. Mletch.

* * *

The attempt that the Irkens had made at creating edible human food was pretty sad. Tasteless wafers, something that tasted a little like raisins, and a tofu-like substance were the only choices at dinner. Did they even know for sure if humans would have negative reactions to their food? The liquid that they used to shower didn't harm them.

Ria sighed and popped a wafer into her mouth. Dib was poking at the raisiny things. "So um," he said. "What did the Tallest talk to you about last night?"

"Oh, yeah!" Ria said. She'd never gotten a chance to tell Dib what she'd learned about the control brains. If there was one person in the universe who would want to know about that, it would be Dib. She leaned over the table so that she could speak to Dib in a whisper. "The idiots spilled a TON about their species, and I don't even think they realized how much they told me!" she said. Then she started explaining the control brains as well as she could, and Dib listened with an expression on his face that reminded Ria of a little kid listening to a great story. She almost laughed at it a couple of times, but she held it until the end, when she started giggling. Dib didn't even notice. He was smiling widely, and obviously thinking about what Ria had just said.

"So… the control brains… create them?"

Ria nodded eagerly.

"Oh man! Just imagine if you could get close to it! Look through all that, just for a minute! I wonder how much would be in there!"

"A lot. Trust me."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Ria panicked. She had temporarily forgotten that he didn't know about her gift. "What do you mean by _that_?"

"Exactly what I said, what's that supposed to mean?"

"What's what supposed to mean?"

Dib face palmed. Ria's leg twitched. Dib didn't know about her gift… should she tell him? Ria leaned closer to Dib. "Look, I'm gonna tell you something, but you have to_ swear_ not to tell anyone else. Or call me crazy."

Dib smiled. "I won't tell. And even if I did call you crazy, it wouldn't matter. People call me crazy too. Just think of all the visionaries, the geniuses, the masters of science that people called crazy! Just think of-"

"Ok Dib, I get the point."

"Sorry. Go on."

"Well, see… all my life, I've had this… gift." Geez, this was really hard to explain. Ria would just have to spit it out. "And, uh… Dib, I can read minds."

Dib just stared at her blankly for a second. "Really?"

"Really."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"You're not kidding?"

"NO DIB, I'M NOT!"

"Ok. So explain to me how this ties in with the control brain thing."

"So, wait, that's it. You believe me?"

"Yeah… should I _not_ believe you? Is this a trick?"

"No, no, it's just… I expected… never mind."

"Just do me a favor, and try to stay of my head as much as you can."

"Well, I'll try, but it's gonna be hard since it's so-"

"DON'T SAY IT!"

Woah. Was he having another spazz attack?_ What did I just do?_ Ria thought.

"My head is not big! _Why _does everyone say that? DOES THIS LOOK BIG TO YOU?"

Ria jumped out of her seat and ran over to Dib. She grabbed his arm. "Dib, calm down!" He was starting to make a scene. Every pair of alien eyes in the room now stared at the table with the two humans. Dib shut his mouth, but he still had that crazy look in his eye for just a second. It faded.

"I just did it again, didn't I?" Dib asked.

Ria laughed. "Yes, you kinda did."

"Oh."

"Look, just forget it." Ria went back to her seat. "I can finish explaining the thing about the control brain now." Dib nodded, though without as much vigor and liveliness as before.

"Well, they asked me to try and read it, like I read minds."

"So wait, the Tallests knew about your gift and I didn't?"

Ria cleared her throat. "Um, yeah, that's a long story. And don't interrupt me!"

"Sorry."

"Anyway, I read the control brain, and that's something I'm _never_ going to try again!"

"Why?"

"All the information in there just came out at once! It was a complete disaster. I couldn't make out _one_ reasonable thought."

"Wow…"

Dinner-time was almost over with, and most people had already left. Ria didn't want to head off to her room yet, though. It was lonely. "And it gets worse!" she said. "The Tallests think that they can use me as some kind of military weapon or something! They said I could be 'useful' to them, or something like that! Can you believe them?"

"Uh, you're_ not_ going to help them, are you?"

"Of course not!" Ria said, waving her hand for emphasis and spilling a cup of tasteless punch all over the table. She ignored it. "Why would I?"

"Just making sure," Dib said defensively. Everyone else had left the dining hall now, but Ria still wasn't ready to head to her room. The usual exhaustion from the day's work had not set in yet. One of the janitorial slaves would be coming in minute to clean up this mess, though. Ria reluctantly stood up.

"So…" she said. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow."

"Uh huh…" Dib said. He stood up. "See you tomorrow."

The doors on the other side of the room swung open, and a small Irken slave came storming in, grumbling and not looking happy about his job. He slammed the mop onto the ground with a splat. Ria couldn't stop staring at him, because he looked just like an Irken that she knew… "Zim?" Dib turned around and looked at him too. The Irken looked back at them. He stared at Ria for a long time, and then looked at Dib. His eyes narrowed. His mop clattered to the ground.

* * *

**Well children, did you pay attention? I hope so! Some details in this chapter that may not seem important will pop up again in later chapters. In fact, there's one thing that I know will come up in the last chapter. Well bye!**


	7. Chapter 7: Possessed

**Guess who's alive? Yup, that'd be me.**

**I hate this chapter so much. So much... hate...**

**I don't hate what happens in this chapter, I just hate that I don't know how to write it.**

**And I change POV in this! Never done that yet in this story. But it's just for a little while.**

**Ok, reveiwer hug time! It's been a while since GIR did this.**

**Me: First, we have RoboticMasterMind.**

**GIR: *hugs***

**Me: Second... Soulstealer. You kind of... scare me a little. But GIR isn't scared of you. So he's gonna hug you.**

**GIR: *hugs***

**Me: And we also have Temyx Mew Mew Haerts.**

**GIR: *hugs***

**Oh, and CullenGirl14 gets a very special hug...**

**Addisyn: *drags a shivering Zim over to wherever we are***

**Me: Zim has been listening to Justin Bieber for a looong time! He's agreed to do whatever we want. Right Zim?**

**Zim: Those hideous Earth man-lady sounds! They are stuck in Zim's BRAAIINS! Melting them!**

**Me: I'll take that as a yes. Now, go hug CullenGirl. Go on.**

**Zim: ...**

**Me: Do it, or we'll put Justin Bieber back on!**

**Zim: *hugs***

**Me: See, that wasn't so bad!**

**Zim: *runs away screaming***

**Me: Well, that's all the time we have today.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Invader Zim.**

**

* * *

**

_Ria_

Dib glared back at the alien and started walking toward him. Zim also started walking and met Dib halfway. This wasn't going to be good.

"Uh, guys?"

They completely ignored Ria.

"GUYS!"

They were in each other's face now.

"Zim," Dib growled.

"Dib."

"Ok, am I invisible today or something?" Ria shouted.

"I hate you," Dib said.

"I hate you more."

Ria rolled her eyes. She was a bit relieved that they weren't trying to kill each other, but then again she was also annoyed by their childish argument. "Really?" she said. "This is it?" Well, acting like five year olds was better than trying to tear each other apart.

"You're stupid! Horribly, horribly, stupid!" Zim said.

Then again, maybe it wasn't.

"Says the guy who got shot with his own gun!"

"Gr, urg… Only because you both kept grabbing it! You were closer to the ground than me!"

Ok, Ria couldn't take this anymore. She stepped up closer to them. "Ok, ok, that's enough! You don't need to act like first graders!" They both stared at her for a second.

"Fine," Dib said. Zim just crossed his arms and looked from Dib to Ria, and then back at Dib.

"Fine. But Dib's still stupid."

"OK, WAS THAT NECESSARY?" Dib shouted. The two rivals erupted into another argument.

Ria groaned. That end of the day exhaustion had finally set in, and at a terrible time. "Stop!" she said, trying to get between them. "Just… stop. You're giving me a headache."

Zim growled. "When the Tallests find out that those guards put me in with the janitorial drones, they'll make me an invader again, and then I'll make sure you have to work all day and all night! Mark my words Dib, on that day your life will be pure misery and pain!"

Ria and Dib suddenly fell silent. Ria had thought that by now, Zim would've figured it out. Turns out she was wrong. He was in complete denial. He had made up some kind of scenario in his head that explained why he was now a drone. He still believed that the Tallests respected him.

Dib was the first to break the silence. He laughed. "Wow Zim…" he said.

Ria turned around and shushed him. "No Dib!" she hissed. "Don't say anything." She stepped closer. "He's not going to believe you anyway. It'll only make things worse."

"I don't care! I mean, just look what he did to me!" Dib lifted up his robotic arm.

Ria looked away. That was also partly her fault. She didn't want to be blamed for it though. With blame came guilt. Guilt was a horrible feeling that ate away at your heart every moment that you dealt with it. So somehow, Ria had to make sure that this wasn't her fault. Dib didn't think it was her fault, did he?

He was just standing there silently now, staring at her. Ria stared back, trying to put herself inside his head. As she stared into his eyes, the world around her kind of blurred out. His thoughts were tough to find. That wasn't going to help Ria's headache. She had to push her way past other things before she could get inside his thoughts. Concentrating harder was the only way to do this.

First she felt little breaths of emotions, and almost heard sounds of things Dib had experienced in the past. Those memories must have been pretty important to him, but they weren't what he was thinking about now. She didn't feel them strongly enough.

Concentrating deeper, she found kind of a fuzzy area. It was void of sounds or images, and didn't really carry any one emotion. More of a random mixture. Maybe this was something one might call insanity. Or maybe it was the opposite. Maybe it was something so very sane Ria just couldn't understand it, considering that fact that she was a bit insane herself. Not likely, but you never know.

Finally she found what she was looking for. When she felt the strong emotions, that meant she'd found his current thoughts. But they weren't what she'd hoped they'd be. Dib was wondering about her. He was asking why she hadn't shot Zim when she had the chance. Doubting her loyalty to the human race. That was all Ria needed to know.

Ria snapped herself out of it and tried not to give away that she'd been reading Dib's mind, but it was hard. Why would he doubt her? Of course she was loyal to humans! She _was_ human! "Dib…" she said. "What are you thinking about?"

Dib immediately got a panicked look on his face. "Th-Thinking about? What… ah… what do you mean?"

"Gee, Dib. What do you _think _I mean?" A small voice in Ria's mind urged her not to get angry. A bigger one was furiously asking why Dib would doubt her that way.

"I'm not thinking about… anything…"

"Don't try telling _me _that, Dib."

"Uh, I was just thinking-"

"I KNOW what you were thinking!" Ria was suddenly having trouble controlling her anger. It was a different kind of anger than Ria had ever experienced, and it was starting to scare her. Why did she get so mad so quickly? Why was this such a big deal? Why did she suddenly feel a hate toward Dib?

This new anger… it was twisting all her other emotions around. There was hate, rage… and a sense of… power? Yes, Ria felt powerful. She _was_ powerful.

* * *

_Dib_

There was something wrong with Ria. It wasn't like her to lash out like this, at least, not so quickly. And the way she was staring at Dib now was starting to creep him out a little. She looked down at the ground and let her hair fall over her eyes. "Ria?" Dib said, hoping to get some sort of response. There was nothing.

At least, not for a minute. After a moment, Ria said, "You know, on the side of your neck, there's a pressure point. If something hit it hard enough, it would cause you a lot of pain. It could damage your airway. It could even be fatal."

Dib unconsciously reached up and rubbed the side of his neck. "I-Isn't that interesting?" he said.

Ria wasn't acting like Ria all of the sudden. Something in her tone was dark, merciless, and somehow _inhuman._ "Mm, it is, isn't it?" she said. Her head lifted and she flipped her hair out of her face to stare at Dib for another moment. Then her eyes narrowed and her lips curled into a dark, menacing smile. She took a step closer to Dib.

"Uh, Ria?" he said. What was she trying to do? Dib took a step back. "What're you doing?" Dib asked. She didn't answer, so Dib tried to get something from her expression. Her eyes didn't really tell him anything, but they weren't the eyes of Ria. They were different eyes. They were the eyes of someone cold and dark.

Ria stepped even closer, until she was only a few inches away from Dib. She stared at him for a while again, but Dib anticipated that she was about to make a dangerous move. Just like Dib had predicted, Ria suddenly lunged at him, and her arm went flying up toward his neck.

He jumped back a little and grabbed Ria's wrist as her hand flew by in front of him. "STOP!" he said. What was wrong with her? Did she just try to hurt him? Kill him? It wasn't helping that all through this, Zim was laughing in the background.

Ria's expression faltered and completely changed when her eyes fell on her hand. They were Ria's again as they widened in shock. She gasped and yanked her hand away. "Wh-What…" she whispered to herself. She took a big step backwards and pulled her hand close to herself.

"No… Dib, get away from me!" she said. She had gone crazy; that was it. She'd lost it. What was she doing? First trying to kill him, and now what? Was she scared of him? "Did you hear me?" she asked. "GET OUT!"

"Ria, I think you need some help. No joke. What happened?"

"Just GO! There's something very, very wrong. Leave."

Dib was hesitant to leave Ria while she was acting like this, but he had a feeling she wasn't going to let him stay. He slowly stepped toward the door.

* * *

_Ria_

Something was going wrong inside Ria's brain. Just after she had gotten mad at Dib, she saw another memory that she must've gotten from the control brain. It was another violent one from an invader, but this one was much more vivid. In fact, Ria could clearly hear, see, and feel everything that the Irken had felt. It was like she was really there, running through the streets of an alien planet, chasing after something she wanted to kill. And she felt the thrill the invader had felt when he went in for a kill. Such a dark concept, but it wasn't like it was her emotion.

At least it wasn't now. But a few minutes ago, it had temporarily _become_ her emotion. She had temporarily felt an excitement as she thought of ways to kill a human. She had temporarily _become_ that invader. It was like Ria had been possessed by the bits and pieces of that invader that were left behind in the control brain. There was something inside of her now, and time would only tell if it was permanent.

Ria sighed and plopped down in a seat next to one of the tables. Zim had resumed his cleaning… sort of. He was mostly just lazily rubbing the mop around on the floor and grumbling.

He stopped and looked up at Ria. "Uh…"

Ria sighed again. "_What?"_

"What just happened? Why were you trying to scare the Dib like that? It was funny."

Ria knew Zim found it funny. She could remember him laughing. "I don't really _know_ what just happened. And I definitely don't want to talk about it."

"Oh. Well that's pretty stupid of you."

"What is?"

Zim chuckled a little. "Didn't you just say you don't know what's happening to you? You're crazier than the Dib-monkey!"

Ria rolled her eyes and resisted the urge to tell Zim that he had no idea what was happening to _him_. He thought he was a drone because of a mistake! Zim went back to mopping for a minute, and then asked, "Why are you still here? Shouldn't you be… sleeping somewhere or something?"

"I'm not tired." That wasn't true. Ria was exhausted, but she didn't want to go to sleep. The nightmares always came when she slept, and she worried all night about it. Sleep was never peaceful.

"Well then, shouldn't you be… I dunno… in your quarters?"

"I don't have to be. Why do have to ask me all these questions?" Geez, Zim was really annoying!

"Zim is just annoyed by your presence! I've had enough of the stupid drones today, and I don't want another one sitting there and watching me… CLEAN!" Zim spat out the last word like it was a curse.

Ria rolled her eyes. Why _was_ she still here? Ria didn't really like being alone, but it was better than being with stupid Zim. She stood up and knocked a spoon off the table that had been left behind by someone.

"Fine. I'll just go!" Ria turned to leave, but as she opened the door, she turned back around. Zim was still watching her. "I still hate you, just so you know," she said.

"Weren't you leaving?" Zim asked. Ria just shook her head, stormed out of the room and started down the hall. How was it even possible to be so stupid and annoying? Only Zim could pull it off.

* * *

_Ria wasn't herself. She felt much different. Her senses were sharper. _

_When the breeze blew over her, she could hear it blowing in her ears… but it felt like her ears were on top of her head. _

_Looking down at a puddle of… some substance, she discovered that she was Irken, with two black antennae that were picking up all this. _

_This Irken body was much stronger than her human one. _

_Now that Ria knew she was Irken, other things started to come to her. She was an invader. She was supposed to destroy this planet, but she was taking a while due to the fact that she preferred duals over mass destruction. The Tallest were going to send someone to help her. _

_Ria knelt down by the puddle and got a better look at her reflection. As she did, she realized she was trapped in the body of a male Irken. Then, as she looked back up and gazed at her surroundings, she realized she'd seen this place before. _

_In a memory._

* * *

Ria blinked her eyes open. It was time to get up and begin her shift. She sat up and stretched. Last night's dream hadn't been so bad, but the fact that it was from the same invader she'd been seeing memories from still sent shivers down her spine.

None of the servants were provided with pajamas, but Ria's shirt was long enough that she could sleep in that alone, so it was comfortable enough. It just felt weird to wear it after she'd slept in it the night before. At least it was something.

Ria got up and put on her pants and jacket, and went to the bathroom to check herself in the mirror. She looked… sort of… ok. For a person who had just gotten out of bed, that is. There wasn't much time before her shift started, so Ria just ran her fingers through her hair for a minute and then left, checking that her key was in her pocket before shutting the door behind her.

The group of servants who worked the other shift were leaving, so Ria got to go right to her job. Yay.

She stepped up to the fryer as a skinny little alien left it. Ria grabbed a random item off the shelf and put it in so that a batch would be ready if anyone ordered it. Of course, now that Ria was prepared, no one would probably order it. It's funny how life works that way, isn't it?

As the grease bubbled in the fryer, Ria took a glance around the room. Dib hadn't come in yet, but another familiar sight greeted her eyes. Mletch was in his usual corner, shivering and crying. Ria felt sorry for him. But what could she do? She took a look around. Slaves from both shifts were still milling around the room, so no one would notice if she wandered over there for just a minute.

Ria walked over and knelt down beside Mletch. "Hey…" she said gently. Mletch whimpered. "What's wrong?" Oh yeah, he couldn't understand her. Ria held out both her hands, hoping that Mletch would understand that Ria wanted him to show her something.

He shivered again, and then slowly took hold of Ria's hands.

The kitchen faded, and Ria saw Mletch in his house, looking up at a large male of his species. He seemed to admire him a lot. The male smiled and bent down, lifted Mletch up, and hugged him. Then he put him down and walked past him, over to Mletch's mother, and wrapped his arms around her.

_So that must be Mletch's father._

Mletch's parents were smiling, but it was obvious that they were trying to hide their real emotions. Something serious was going on. Then Mletch's father picked up a bag off the ground. It looked kind of like a suitcase. He was leaving.

Mletch followed his father to the door, and when it opened, there was some kind of small spaceship outside. Other people were visible inside it through narrow side windows.

_Is it some kind of public transportation? _

Mletch's father started walking across the yard toward it. A hatch on the side opened to allow him to get in. Mletch's father stepped in and turned around to wave goodbye. Then the hatch started to close and the ship started to lift up. Mletch's father turned back around and went inside.

Mletch whimpered his cute little whimper and dashed across the yard. "Mletch!" his mother called out in surprise. He didn't even turn around to look at his poor, shocked mom. Just before the hatch closed, Mletch jumped up and pulled himself inside.

The ship had already lifted off the ground, and it now started to fly off. Mletch looked out the narrow window and waved to his mother, who was frantically chasing after the ship as it rose up into the sky. Then Mletch turned around to look at the people who shared this ship with him. They were all staring at him in shock, and one of them slowly reached over and nudged Mletch's father, who was putting his suitcase in a compartment above him and had not seen his son jump inside.

He turned around, and when he saw Mletch, his eyes widened. Then he walked over and started to scold his son. Mletch hung his head and whispered something, but whatever he said did not make his dad happy. He raised his voice then, and suddenly looked very angry. After yelling at him for a moment, he sighed and knelt down so that he was eye-level with Mletch. He spoke to him again, more gently this time, and then lifted Mletch up and put him the seat next to his own.

Mletch sighed and watched the world outside the windows. Mletch looked down at his feet, and then up at his dad, and then back to the window. Just as he looked up, the clouds started to disappear. When Mletch saw the stars, he smiled widely.

_That's so cute._

Mletch smiled as wide as he could and pulled on his father's arm. "Glerp! Glerp!" Mletch's father looked at him, and Mletch pointed to the window. Mletch spoke to him some more, this time with a certain admiration in his voice. His father just nodded and smiled.

Then, all of the sudden, there was a thud. The ship had come to an abrupt stop. Mletch's father stood up and went to look out the front, along with a few others. Mletch, who also looked curious, hopped up and went to have a look for himself. What could be seen out the front was another ship. This one was a little larger, but still not anything giant like the Massive. The difference between Mletch's ship and this other one was that the one out in space sported an Irken symbol on its side.

Most people on board seemed to recognize that symbol, as they started pointing to it in shock and fear. Mletch didn't seem to have any understanding of what was going on, so he stepped closer to his dad and tried to get his attention. The other ship succeeded in this before he did. It started to move closer, and fast.

Everyone started moving around worriedly, and the driver attempted to turn the ship around. He wasn't fast enough though. The Irken ship slammed into Mletch's with another thud. Mletch screamed. He still didn't seem to understand what was going on, but he sure didn't like it. His father opened the compartment that his suitcase was in and threw it out. Then he scooped Mletch up and pushed him inside.

It was a tight squeeze, despite Mletch's tiny size, and it would barely close. But it would work as a hiding place for a while.

_So the Irkens must be feared everywhere._

There was a lot of noise and banging around outside, and shouting in two different languages. Mletch couldn't see what was happening, (so he couldn't show Ria, obviously) but he could hear a struggle going on. Then there was gunfire.

Mletch, already in a tight ball to fit in this space, somehow managed to curl up tighter. He must have hated the sound. Anyone would have. But after the gunfire, it was quieter. It was over. Mletch didn't move from his spot, though. There were still sounds of movement.

Then, there were sounds of other compartments being opened, and then slam shut. The sounds were moving closer.

_What are they searching for?_

Footsteps were heard outside Mletch's compartment. Then it started to open, and a beam of light blasted in from the opening. Mletch squeaked when he saw that the person who had opened it was not his father. It was one of the Irkens.

The Irken gasped, and he quickly scooped Mletch up and studied him. There were more Irkens around, and they all appeared relatively unharmed. The same could not be said for the others of Mletch's kind. They were all lying on the ground; injured, bleeding, maybe dead. Mletch squeaked again and struggled against the Irken's grasp. Then he looked down at the ground, searching the faces for someone. Probably his father.

There he was. He was moving. He was pulling something out of his pocket. The Irken roughly shook Mletch, and asked him something, forcing him to look away from his father, so he never saw what he was doing. Mletch shook his head in reply to the Irken's question.

Then he looked down at his father. He had pulled what he wanted from his pocket, and was obviously trying to hide it from the Irkens, so that if they looked down they wouldn't see what he was doing.

_What __**is**__ he doing?_

The Irken who held Mletch tossed him to another Irken, and shouted something at him. Mletch struggled again. "Mletch!" his father called from his spot on the ground. He weakly sat up and tossed something into Mletch's hands. It was a tiny stuffed doll, one that looked like Mletch.

Mletch held it tightly to his chest, and then struggled again against the Irken who held him. "Glerp!" he called. The Irken turned and carried him to the front of the ship. It was there that the Irkens had collided with Mletch's ship, and the two spacecraft had been crunched together so tightly that the side of the Irken's ship was basically inside Mletch's ship.

All the Irkens had to do to get back into their ship was open the door. That's just what they did, too. And they took Mletch with them. He struggled again, in one more, feeble attempt to escape, but it was no use. "Gle-erp!" he screeched.

The Irken dropped him to the ground once they were inside the ship, and then gestured for his partners to hurry up. He yelled something to them urgently, and they gasped and made a run for it. As soon as they jumped in the ship, they all shouted something to the pilot. The door slid shut as the ship spun out of its trapped position and sped out into the void of space.

Mletch had understood what the Irkens were saying, and closed his eyes to try and block out what was about to happen. It didn't help. The sound of the explosion reached him just the same. He pulled the doll closer to him and whispered, "Glerp."

The kitchen faded back into view, but it took Ria a second to realize she was back. And crying. "Those monsters…" she whispered.

Ria couldn't help but wonder just why the Irkens had attacked Mletch's ship that day. They had obviously been searching for something, but never found it. There was a bigger picture here, but Ria failed to see it. What she did see was the sad story of a little child who lost his parents.

She looked back at Mletch, who had huddled back up in his little corner. "Mletch…" Ria said, wiping tears from her eyes. "It'll be OK." Mletch couldn't understand her, but the tone of her voice seemed to comfort him a little. He scooted closer.

"HEY, YOU TWO!" bellowed an Irken standing by the door. "GET TO WORK!"

Ria rolled her eyes and stood up, then reached down to help Mletch stand. He stared at her for a minute, and then reluctantly took her hand and stood up. Without another word, both of them went back to their work stations.

* * *

It was break time, and everyone was supposed to eat, but Ria wasn't hungry today. She hadn't said a word to Dib since the night before, and she wasn't really sure what to say. Dib wasn't acting like he was mad at her, but he hadn't really spoken much either. She looked at him in the seat next to her, but he was staring at his little wafer-thing.

"So…" Ria said. Dib looked up at her, but didn't say anything. Ria looked at the ground. She kind of wanted to break this awkward silence, but there was a worry in the back of her mind that he might ask about last night. That was the last thing she wanted to talk about.

Then the doors to the dining hall came open, and two Irken guards stepped into the room. "What do _they_ want…" Ria muttered under her breath. Dib must have heard her, because he shrugged. The guards looked around the room, and when they saw Ria, they started walking closer.

"Oh no…" she groaned. They stopped in front of where Ria was sitting.

"Human," one of them said. "You are required to come with us."

"What for?"

"That question cannot be answered here. Come."

Ria stood up slowly. "What's going on?" she asked.

One of the guards made no reply. The other only shook his head. "Come," he repeated.

Ria sighed, but she didn't really have any other choice. She followed the guards out of the dining hall. "Where are you taking me?" Ria tried again to get something from her two escorts.

"Classified."

"Oh, so now it's _classified,_ is it? Well, listen here mister 'classified', I think it's my business to know where _I'm_ being taken!"

The guards had nothing to say to this. Ria sighed, defeated, and allowed herself to be led through the Massive in silence. The guards stopped in front of a familiar door. Ria couldn't read the Irken writing, but she recognized this place. "The medical ward?" she said. "Seriously, what's going on?"

The guards still had nothing to say. They just opened the door and motioned for her to go inside. The first thing she came to was the waiting room where she'd sat for six hours, waiting for Dib. That wasn't where she was supposed to stop, judging by the shove from behind urging her to go on.

Ria went through the door she could remember Dib frantically bursting through, and into yet another hallway. "Ok, which door is it?" she asked, starting to get annoyed with this big-ass ship and its many rooms.

"That one," said one of the guards, motioning to a door directly to Ria's left.

"Ok, _finally_ I get a clear answer from one of you!" Ria stepped up to the door and turned the knob, but then realized that the guards made no move to follow her. "You're not coming?" she asked.

The guards both vigorously shook their heads. "I'm not going in there!" one of them said.

Ria's palms started to sweat. What could be behind this door? A hideous operating room, where a mad doctor did all sorts of crazy experiments? Ria took a deep breath and threw the door open. The sight that greeted her eyes was not what she was expecting. It was a brightly lit room, with shelves full of normal looking medical equipment, (well, normal by Irken standards that is) and two chairs in the corner.

An Irken in a white doctor coat stood by a microscope, studying something. He turned when Ria clicked the door shut behind her. "Ah, the human…" he said in his deep and slightly raspy voice. "Take a seat."

Ria sat down in one of the chairs in the corner, and let out a sigh of relief. She couldn't see what those guards were so scared about. She didn't have any _really_ bad feelings about this, though she still didn't really know what was going on.

The doctor stepped away from his microscope and started rummaging around in a drawer. "Um…" Ria said. "Would _you_ tell me why I'm here? I don't really know what's going on."

The doctor looked up at her and smiled. When the doctor smiled, Ria shivered and realized why those guards didn't want to come in here. His smile was… creepy. Disturbing, even, somehow. His mouth was slightly crooked, and his teeth weren't the usual zipper-like formation that the other Irkens had. They did sort of match up like a zipper, but they were just the slightest bit jagged at the end. Not too pointy, just enough so that it was noticeable.

And his eyes were creepier than his mouth. One of them was much smaller than the other, even though they grew times one million when he grinned, and they didn't really look happy. They looked more menacing. Ria swallowed nervously.

"Oh, it's nothing really. You're just going to… help us Irkens a little. That's all."

"H-Help? What do I have to do to _help?"_

The doctor pulled a syringe out of the drawer and held it up. The needle glinted in the bright lights above. "Oh, not much at all. You're just going to donate a little bit of your _blood."_


	8. Chapter 8: I don't have a good title

**Well, here's chapter eight! This chapter is just a teeny-tiny bit shorter than usual, but still a little over 4,000 words.**

**My only reviewer this time was Temyx Mew Mew Haerts.**

**GIR: *hugs***

**Enjoy!**

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Ria gasped. "My… blood?"

"Yes…" the doctor said. "Is this a problem?"

Ria carefully avoided the question. "What do you need it for?"

The doctor chuckled. "Do you really think I would be allowed to tell you that?"

Ria shrank back in her chair. "I'm not going to let you take it unless you tell me…" she said.

The doctor laughed again. "I don't really know you, but I don't think you're going to let me take it anyway. Are you?" He was a pretty quick thinker. He leaned closer and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him. He was also very weird. "You are going to help us. That's all I can tell you." He released Ria and stepped back again.

"Well, then I guess you'll have a pretty hard time getting blood from _me!" _

"Honestly, child, give this up already. I'm smart enough to see that no matter what I say or do I'm certain to get some kind of struggle from you. Besides… it's that kind of thing that makes my job more exciting!" The doctor stepped closer and reached out for Ria's arm. She gasped and swatted at the syringe in his other hand, and it went flying across the room, hit the wall, and landed on the floor with a tiny _clink._ The doctor growled and stormed over to pick it up.

On an impulse, Ria jumped up and dove for it, but the doctor reached it first. Ria tumbled to the ground in the scramble, and the doctor reached down and grabbed her arm. "I'll make this quick!" he said. He rolled the sleeve of Ria's jacket back. Then, with that insane smile again on his face, he went to stick the syringe in her arm. Ria swung her leg out and kicked his foot, causing him to stumble backwards. He muttered something in Irken.

Ria stood up and made a run for the door, but the doctor beat her there. "How about this," he said, out of breath. "How… about… we make… a deal?"

"What kind of deal?"

"I tell you what we want with your blood, and you let me take it."

"Isn't that what I offered before?"

"Yes, but then you didn't _mean _it. Did you?"

Ria wasn't sure what to say. What if knowing what her blood was for only made her more resistant to giving it up? Those guards had seemed pretty scared of this doctor. If she broke a deal with him, what would he do?

On the other hand, Ria really wanted to know. "Ok…" she said. "Deal."

"Ok, sit down child. I'll tell you." Ria sat down in the chair again. "Well, I guess I'll just start with what the Tallest told me. You have a very… _special _gift, don't you Ria?" Ria nodded. "Well we intend to try and use that gift to benefit ourselves. Just imagine how powerful the Irkens would be if we had the power to read minds! So we want to take blood samples from you, and use them in many different ways."

"Some we may run DNA scans on, to see what's so special about you. Some we may use to see if there is a way to transfer this gift into Irken DNA. And the others…" the doctor paused and laughed quietly for a moment. "…the others, we'll use to create a hybrid. No, hundreds of hybrids. An entire army of them!" The doctor started to laugh again. None of this sounded good to Ria. She now had even less desire to lose any blood for this cause.

"I remember one time before when we almost had our hands on DNA of a creature with this gift. Their civilization agreed to share it with another race, in hopes to create a hybrid, but they wouldn't give it to us. They tried to hide it. But we picked up some of their transmissions, and tried to get if from them."

"But we never did. Then, we found a child! We took blood from it, but it didn't work right. Their species' DNA wouldn't combine right with Irken DNA. The hybrids came out _all wrong!" _Mletch. He was talking about Mletch. Ria was sure of it.

"But that's all behind us now… because we have a new specimen. With new DNA. And this time, I'll be sure to keep at least one vial to myself, for my own experiments. With it, I will rise to power, and be above even the Tallest! I'll be ruler, with my amazing science!" The doctor laughed again. He was done with his ranting now. And he was going to try and get Ria's blood. She curled up in the chair.

She shouldn't have asked why he wanted the blood. It made this all that much harder. "Now…" the doctor grinned. "I believe we had a deal?" He reached out for Ria's arm. "I can't do this…" she said.

"Oh, but you have to. We made a deal, remember?"

"No… I can't do it!"

The doctor growled and grabbed her arm, rolled up her sleeve, and jammed the needle in before Ria even realized what was happening. "No!" she said. It was too late. She felt that weak, sick feeling as the blood was drawn from her, only worse, because he had done it quickly so that Ria wouldn't struggle. "Just a few more. Let me get another syringe."

As soon as the doctor let go of Ria's arm, she stood up, wobbled in her now queasy and dizzy state, then ran for the door. The doctor grabbed the back of her jacket and nearly threw her to the ground as he pulled her toward the chair again. "Sit. Down." He hissed. Ria didn't want to sit. But what could she do?

"No…" she said. The doctor glared at her. "Oh dear. It appears I have an uncooperative patient here." Ria didn't like the way he was looking at her. She backed away, and sat down. "Good girl," the doctor said. Then he went over and looked in the drawer for another syringe as if nothing had even happened.

Ria really didn't want to do this. Where was that darkness inside of her when she _needed_ it? The doctor had another syringe now, and stepped in front of Ria again. "Now, am I going to have a more cooperative subject this time?" Ria didn't answer. What would he do if she said no? "Well? _I'm waiting."_

"Um… no?"

The doctor fell silent for a second, but it wasn't a normal silence. It was a threatening silence. The quiet before the storm, one might call it. There was definitely something hanging in the air, keeping Ria from breathing as she waited for the doctor's response. Finally he spoke.

"What's it going to take to make you cooperate with me?"

"Y-You can't make me. I won't do it."

"But we had a _deal. _People don't break deals with me."

The doctor grabbed one of Ria's arms and slammed it back against the wall. Then, using his other hand, he stuck the needle into Ria's arm. He let go of Ria for just a second to draw blood, (too fast _again_) and then had her again. Ria struggled to get him to let go of her arm, but he was pretty strong.

Then he grabbed her other arm and pushed it back, so that Ria was completely pinned against the wall. "Now, you will cooperate," the doctor said. He stared at her with those crazy looking eyes. Ria's heart started racing as if she were a little animal, and the doctor was a predator closing in on her. She felt like these could be her last moments, even though the rational part of her brain knew the doctor wouldn't kill her.

Or would he?

"Do we have an understanding?" Ria didn't want to agree to this, but her fear was overpowering. This doctor really knew how to get people to listen. Ria nodded. "Good." The doctor released Ria's arms, and went to get a few more syringes.

He brought them over and set them down, and Ria watched as they were filled one by one with her own blood. After about three more, Ria was starting to feel very sick. "H-How many more are you going to take?" she asked as she started to feel weak.

"Just a few."

"How many is a few?"

The doctor's only answer was yet another needle being jabbed into Ria's arm, followed again by that dizziness. Ria closed her eyes so that she wouldn't see the blood anymore. It wouldn't help with her queasy stomach.

Ria didn't know how much blood the doctor took after that, but she felt maybe four or five more jabs before the doctor finally said, "That's all. For now." Ria opened her eyes. Was it really finally over? Ria stood up from the chair, only to discover that she was much weaker than she thought. She reached back and steadied herself on the arm of the chair.

Slowly, she started to stand up straighter, testing herself. Once Ria felt steady enough to stand on her own, she unclamped her hand from around the arm of the chair. At first, it seemed alright. There was still a slight dizzy feeling lingering, but Ria felt ok.

She stuck one foot out to take a step, and all of the sudden the floor was swinging up to meet her, and she landed right on her face. Ria pushed herself up onto her elbows and rubbed her nose. "Ow…" she muttered. The doctor laughed quietly behind her.

"I can _hear_ you laughing," Ria growled before standing again. Ria finished the walk across the room and turned the knob on the door. The guards were still waiting in the hall to take Ria back.

The guards took Ria to the kitchen. She had missed break and almost thirty minutes of work. She only hoped that she wouldn't have to put in extra time for that. Right away, she went to her usual station at the fryers. As usual, her mind was not on the work. It was on the subject of the "help" she'd just given the Irkens.

She couldn't believe she'd actually done that. What could they do with the power of mind reading, if they were to acquire it? No one could ever lie to them, that's for sure. And they'd take over each planet much faster if they knew what their enemy was planning.

If they could read minds, they'd be able to anticipate the enemy's every move and stop it before it happened. As if they weren't powerful enough already! Just imagining how fast they'd take over with a special power gave Ria chills. She wasn't going to let that happen. She wasn't sure what to do, but Ria couldn't let them gain her power.

* * *

Ria knew the question was coming before she sat down at the table next to Dib. As soon as she planted herself in the seat, Dib popped the question. "Where did the guards take you today?"

Ria sighed. "It's… a long story."

"Tell me."

"Fine." Ria began to explain, starting all the way at the beginning, with her entering the doctor's room, and ended with her finally getting back to the kitchen. Dib was obviously listening intently throughout the entire story.

"That's what they must have meant before!" he said.

"Who?"

"The Tallests! Remember, they said you could be useful to them!"

"Yeah… I guess you're right!" Ria said. Thinking about it, Ria realized that they never planned to use _her _as a weapon, they just need her power. And she realized something else. If they had her blood, and if the DNA was compatible, then Ria would be of no use to them anymore. She would be as vulnerable to being thrown out the airlock as any servant. And Ria couldn't let that happen.

"Dib, we can't let them do this!" Ria said suddenly.

"What?"

"We can't let them use my blood for anything. We have to do something."

"Like what?" Ria thought about it for a minute, and her heart sank as she realized the truth. She couldn't do anything about it now, could she?

"I… don't know."

Dib sighed. "Yeah. That's what I thought." So Dib felt the same hopelessness that Ria did? The same feeling of weakness? Ria felt powerless. Now, she would either be killed by the Irkens and die young, or be a slave for the rest of her life. A bleak future either way.

That doctor had probably given the blood samples to the Tallests by now. Well, other than the one he said that he planned to keep for himself. Wait. He wanted to keep one. He wanted to keep one so that he could rise to power, and be above the Tallest. Could it be that not all Irkens loved the Tallests?

Ria had never seen anything like that before. All Irkens seemed to love the Tallests, and would do anything for them. But maybe not? Even if it was just one Irken that disliked the Tallest, there were surely _hundreds_ of slaves that hated them as much as Ria did. "Wait a minute," Ria said.

"What?"

"There _is_ something we can do!"

"And what would that be?"

"Well, you might think this is insane, but hear me out." Dib nodded. "I say, we find all the others who hate the Tallests. All the servants we can get. We could even try to find some Irkens to join us! Then we can create a resistance. We could try to escape this place!"

"I don't know, Ria. I've considered a resistance before. But how would we escape? And where would we go if we did? I mean, it's not like Earth is an option anymore."

"I don't know Dib, I haven't thought that far yet. But it wouldn't matter where we went, as long as we got off this goddamn ship! Maybe we could even get back to Earth and look for your sister."

That got Dib thinking. Ria had to keep talking. Maybe she could get him on board. She thought back to one of the first days at work in the kitchen, when Dib had told her that at the rate the Massive was going, they would destroy the entire Earth within two months. "You're the one that said we only had two months before the Earth was completely destroyed. We don't have much time."

Dib was still thinking, judging by the look on his face. He was probably considering it. Considering saving Gaz. Considering freedom. "It'd be a lot of work. Not to mention really risky," he said.

"I know."

"We'd probably have to steal an Irken escape pod or something."

"Yup."

"We might not have a very big group. People would be scared."

"Most likely."

Dib sighed. "Alright. I'm in." Ria smiled. The resistance had its first two official members.

* * *

Everyone was finishing up dinner when the one of the Irkens walked over to Ria's table. "I understand that you missed thirty minutes of work today," he said. Ria nodded. "You will make up for that by helping the janitor clean up this place."

"What? That's not fair! It's not my fault that I missed work!"

"Eh, too bad."

Without another word, the Irken walked away. Ria groaned. So she'd be cleaning this dining hall… with Zim? "Well this sucks," she said. Dib nodded. "Sorry," he said. Then he got up and went to toss his trash down a garbage chute.

As the dining hall started to empty out one person at a time, Ria considered just running to her room. Of course, if she got caught, there was no telling what they'd do to her. "It'll just be a few minutes…" she told herself. It didn't really help.

One last slave left the room, and Ria was alone. But just for a moment, because Zim walked in not even a minute later. He sighed and set down his cleaning supplies. He noticed Ria immediately. "Ria-human? What are you doing here?"

"I'm supposed to help you clean…" she said. She got up and walked over to where Zim stood. "So give me a sponge or something."

Zim sighed and tossed her a green sponge. Ria started scrubbing a nearby table, and the two worked in silence. After Ria finished the table, she started moving toward another. She didn't actually get there, though, since her feet suddenly flew out in front of her. The back of her head hit the floor with a painful _thud._

"Ow!" Ria sat up and rubbed the back of her head. "Zim! Why didn't you tell me you already mopped there!"

"You couldn't tell? I underestimated your stupidness." Ria growled and started to stand, only to fall again. Zim looked down at her and chuckled. "By a lot." Ria started to get angry, but then she felt a smile coming on. And then she found that she was suppressing a giggle. Finally she started laughing.

"What?" Zim said. That just made Ria laugh harder, since she really didn't know what was so funny. Maybe she was just laughing at herself. Whatever the cause of the laughter, Ria suddenly couldn't stop. "What?" Zim said again.

"I… guess I did look pretty stupid, huh?" Ria said. Then she went into another uncontrollable laughing fit.

"Stop that! You sound like GIR." The mention of GIR made Ria stop laughing. The last memory she had of the little robot was him screaming as she was loaded onto the Massive. "GIR… What happened to GIR?" Zim dug something out of a pocket that Ria never knew was there and tossed it to her. It looked like some kind of computer chip.

"That's what happened to him. That's his personality, memories, everything. All it needs is a body."

"Oh…" Ria said. She wasn't sure what she should say. It was impossible to tell by Zim's voice if he cared about what had happened to his little robot companion, but Ria still wondered.

Zim held out his hand. Ria gently dropped the chip into his palm, and Zim put it back into his pocket. Then Zim continued mopping. Ria reached over to a chair nearby and used it to stand up. She didn't want to fall a third time. Then she went right back to scrubbing the tables. Again in silence.

* * *

"Well," said Ria, dropping her sponge into a bucket of cleanser. "I guess we're done."

Zim nodded.

"I'm outta here," Ria said. Then, carefully, Ria started walking across the just-mopped room. She still managed to somehow nearly fall about halfway to the door. She heard Zim laugh quietly. "Oh, shut up would you!" Ria said. Then she continued out the door.

As she walked back to her room, Ria wondered what was up with him today. He was still annoying, but not as annoying as usual. And it was more of a funny annoying than an "I am going to make you want to rip my head off" kind of annoying.

Or maybe it was just in Ria's head. Or maybe it was just because he didn't talk much. "Whatever…" Ria mumbled to herself. It was kind of stupid to over-think it. Ria reached her room and dug her key out of her pocket, slid the little card, and she was in.

Ria sighed and flopped down on the bed. Life could be pretty stupid sometimes. Like now. Sitting on the ship belonging to the aliens trying to destroy your planet, and not being able to do much about it. Worse, giving your blood so that they could make clones and hybrids with your special gift. Yes, sometimes life really sucked. But if Ria and Dib could pull this resistance thing off, maybe it would turn around. Maybe things would change for the better. Just maybe.

Ria stood up from the bed and went over to her window. What Ria could see of Earth was blue. All she could see was blue. There was a lot of water on Earth. A lot of ocean. What would happen to it once the Irkens took over? Would they dry it all up? They wouldn't have much use for it, would they? Maybe as a way to torture slaves. Maybe they could use it for executions.

Ria shuddered and pressed her face closer up against the cool glass. The stars were beautiful. Ria stared at them for a while, and quickly found herself smiling. It had been a while since she'd taken a moment to appreciate beauty. But that was only because there weren't many beautiful things to appreciate anymore.

The Irken ship wasn't a beautiful place. It wasn't a nice place to be. It was a cold place. Ria couldn't imagine ever feeling at home here. She would feel at home on Earth. Anywhere on Earth. As long as it was that big, rotating rock that she'd called home for sixteen years.

Ria sighed and turned away from the window. Looking at that big blue and green orb just made her wish even more to be back there. She needed to take her mind off it. Maybe take a shower. Yeah, that's what Ria needed. A good shower. She started for the bathroom, but as she crossed the room, she saw something moving on the security monitor.

Stepping closer, she realized that she was no longer seeing the hall outside her door. She was seeing someone's room. Specifically Dib's, since he was the one on screen, messing with some wires. "Dib?" she said. What had he done now?

He finally noticed Ria looking at him, and said something that Ria couldn't hear. "There's no sound!" she said.

_"What?" _Dib mouthed.

"I can't hear you!" Ria shouted, as if shouting would help. Then she cupped her hand to her ear for emphasis. Dib nodded, and made a _"wait a second" _motion and started messing with the wires again. Ria sighed. What was Dib trying to accomplish by screwing up his security system?

A few seconds later, Ria heard Dib's voice. "Can you hear me? Nod or something, I won't be able to hear you yet." Ria nodded. "Ok, now I'm gonna have to teach you how to fix the sound so I can hear you."

Ria laughed. As if _she _would be able to do whatever Dib had done. Dib must have seen the expression on her face, because he said, "It's actually pretty easy." Ria laughed again. "First, you have to take your monitor off the wall. The metal arm holding it has a joint in it, do you see that?"

Ria looked behind her monitor and nodded. "Ok, now bend that joint as far upward as it will go." Ria reached back and did what Dib said, and there was a snapping sound as the joint broke right apart. Ria barely managed to catch the small monitor before it crashed to the floor. Then she set it down and went back in front of the screen.

"Ok, good. Now on the back of the monitor, there are six wires. See them?" Ria took a peek at the backside of her monitor. Indeed, there were six different wires, all lined up in a neat row. Ria nodded at Dib again. "Good. Now unplug the green wire and plug it into the slot below the white wire."

Ria gave the green wire a good tug and it easily popped out of its socket. Then she searched for the white wire, and found the slot below it. She inserted the green wire into it. "Say something now," Dib said. "So we can test it."

"Uh, hi?" Ria said.

Dib smiled. "Ok, we've got it!"

"What exactly was the point of this?" Ria asked.

"I thought it might come in handy with this whole… resistance thing, you know?"

Ria nodded. "Yeah, it could. I guess."

"And as a bonus, I now know how to tamper with the Irken's security system! Just think of what that could do for us!" Ria nodded, but then she realized something that made her heart stop. "Dib, no one else can see this, can they?"

Dib shook his head, and Ria breathed a sigh of relief. They'd be dead by tomorrow if anyone else was listening. "Good."

"Ok, that's all I wanted to do. We can talk more tomorrow, but I think we should go before anyone hears us."

"Yeah, ok. How to I turn it off?"

"Well, I have to disconnect our systems, but all you have to do is switch the wires back."

Ria nodded. "Ok." She quickly unplugged the wires and put them back in their original sockets. Well, now that was over. What was Ria doing again? Oh yeah, a shower.

If only Ria could shower in water again. But water hurt the Irkens. Water wasn't for aliens. Water was on Earth. There was no way to know if Ria would ever touch water again.


End file.
